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 De Quincey and his friends; personal reco 
 
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DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
'* De Quincey's powers of reasoning are unsurpassed, his imagination is warm and 
 brilliant, and his humour both masculine and delicate. 
 
 ****** 
 
 "A great master of English composition, a critic of uncommon delicacy, an honest 
 and unflinching investigator of received opinions, a philosophic inquirer— De Qujncey 
 has departed from us full of years, and left no successor to his rank. The exquisite 
 finish of his style, with the scholastic vigour of his logic, form a combination which 
 centuries may never reproduce, but which every generation should' study as one of the 
 marvels of English Literature." — Quarterly Review. 
 
 "Those sweet and strange dreams, those lofty and magnificent reveries, expressed in 
 language permeated with solemn feeling, or breathing with awful passion, and of strong 
 'wandering musical variations * upon the themes of grief or joy with which every heart 
 may sympathise. The 'Suspiria' are some of them— sighs from lowest depths. They 
 contain passages of unearthly beauty and power. The mind is swept away by them into 
 some shadowy region, where one vision of innocence, or beauty, or fear, or sorrow, 
 chases another, till all at last fade into the light of common day." — North American 
 Revieiv. 
 
 "The wonder-working Artist, whose dreams and dream-sceneries have enriched ou^ 
 literature with a new world of fancy." — Atkeneeiim, 
 
 "We are all of us children to De Qvincvn"— Christopher North, 
 
 *' He is a man of a million ! " — Tickler in " The Nodes." 
 
 **You shall hear words now of deepest import, and the language shall search your soul 
 for echoes— and further on the thoughts will return and revolve around you like the 
 spectres of the Arabian desert — and you shall feel something within you that was ne'er 
 revealed to consdousness before." — New York Weekly Times. 
 
 ** As Professor Wilson once said to us about him, ' The lest word always comes up.* " 
 -—George GilJUlattf "Literary Portraits." 
 
 ''His fame, established in his lifetime, has been growing ever since, and is still 
 growing. He has, one may say, a constituency of special admirers over all the English- 
 speaking world ; and, by very evident signs, the circle of this constituency is every 
 year extending itself. And why? Because every year it is more and more widelj"- 
 recognised that this strange man, dead now so many years ago, is one of the princes of 
 English prose literature, and an almost unique personality in the whole history of 
 English literature, whether in prose ,or verse." — Professor Masson, 
 

 1 
 
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 3^r^.^Xi.j7^, '^/^z^.^t^ 
 
 
DE Q^UINCEY 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS FRIENDS 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS, SOUVENIRS 
 AND ANECDOTES 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS DE aUINCEY 
 
 HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES 
 
 WRITTEN AND COLLECTED BY 
 
 JAMES HOGG 
 
 EDITOR OF DE QUINCKY'S "UNCOLLECTED WRITINGS" 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON AND COMPANY 
 
 LIMITED 
 
 ^i. ©unatan's i^ouse 
 Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.G. 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFORD STRBET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 By 
 
 Dr. 
 
 Preface .......... 
 
 Thomas de Quincey : His Friends and Associates. In 
 Twenty-one Sections. By Alexander H. Japp, LL.D., 
 Author of the " Life of Thomas De Quincey " and Editor 
 of his " Posthumous Works ''...., 
 
 De Quincey's Parents and His Family 
 
 Notes of Conversations with Thoma^s De Quincey. 
 
 Richard Woodhouse 
 
 Note on Richard Woodhouse (Dr. Garnett) 
 
 A Souvenir of Oxford Days ..... 
 
 De Quincey's Latin Theme. With Translation by 
 
 Garnett 
 
 Dr. Cotton, Provost of Worcester College, on the Oxford Life 
 Recollections of the Glasgow Period. By CoLiN Rae-Brown 
 Personal Recollections. By JOHN Ritchie Findlay (of the 
 
 Scotsman) . . ' 
 
 Appendix 
 
 Days and Nights with Thomas De Quincey. 
 By jAMiSs Hogg : — 
 Our First Interview 
 Personal Characteristics 
 Kant and His Garter Machine 
 Our Lantern .... 
 De Quincey on Opium . 
 The Uneducated Bug 
 What would "the Baker" say ? 
 Passion for the Violin . 
 De Quincey as a Practical Man 
 The Carlyles. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 vii 
 
 2 
 
 70 
 
 71 
 103 
 104 
 
 105 
 107 
 III 
 
 122 
 165. 
 
 169- 
 
 171 
 
 177 
 
 179 
 
 180 
 
 181 
 
 182 
 
 185 
 
 186 
 
 187 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 Days and Nights with Thomas de Quincey — continued. 
 
 De Quincey's Feeling Concerning Thackeray and Dickens 192 
 
 Christopher North I95 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne I97 
 
 Clare Market . i99 
 
 l^t^SX-OTfai'' The Confessions" 200 
 
 Unpublished Letters, in Facsimile 206 
 
 Humorous and Pathetic Letters from Unpublished Originals 210 
 Poor Ann ! General Hamley's jeu d'esprit, and Alfred 
 
 DE Musset's French Version 214 
 
 A Daughter's Memories ....... 216 
 
 Recollections. By the Rev. Francis Jacox . . .219 
 
 James Payn's Reminiscences ...... 235 
 
 Souvenirs and Anecdotes — 
 
 By Various Friends and Associates . .... 239 
 
 By Thomas Hood 239 
 
 By Thomas Carlyle 240 
 
 By R. P. Gillies 242 
 
 By Charles Knight 243 
 
 By Mrs. Gordon 245 
 
 By J. G. Bertram 246 
 
 " Thomas Papaverius." By JOHN HiLL BURTON, LL.D. . 250 
 
 Carlyle and De Quincey . . . . , . • . 262 
 ■ De Quincey's Revenge : A Ballad in Three Fittes. By 
 
 "Delta" (Dr. D. A. Moir) 267 
 
 De Quincey on the Doctrine of Future Punishment . . 293 
 
 On the Supposed Scriptural Expression for Eternity . . 295 
 On the Genius of Thomas de Quincey. By Shadworth H. 
 
 Hodgson, LL.D 314 
 
 Index .......... 361 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 For many years, in the throng of a busy life, I have 
 indulged the hope that I might, some day, be able to 
 draw together the scattered souvenirs and anecdotes of 
 Thomas de Quincey — adding such personal recollec- 
 tions of my own as memory still kept fresh. 
 
 It appeared to me that by doing so some service 
 would be done to literature and some good use made of 
 the unequalled opportunities I enjoyed during years of 
 intimate and continuous intercourse with the author. 
 
 Now that the long-lost letters and papers, fragments 
 of the " Suspiria," &c., have at last seen the light, and 
 I have attained my sixty-sixth year, with sufficient 
 leisure at command, I attempt the task. 
 
 It is my grateful duty to record the various cordial, 
 kindly aids which I have received, and which, I trust, 
 will make this volume a welcome addition to De 
 Quincey literature — worthy to stand on the shelf 
 alongside those " Collected Works " of the author which 
 my father, my brother, and myself were iirst privileged 
 to set before the public. 
 
 To the able co-operation of my colleague. Dr. A. H. 
 Japp, who so worthily fulfilled his office as the author's 
 biographer, as well as editor of the " Posthumous 
 Works,'' I owe the concise review, kindly undertaken 
 at my request, of De Quincey'S Friends and Asso- 
 
VUl PREFACE 
 
 CIATES. We have here the salient points of a long and 
 chequered career picturesquely set forth with that 
 accurate knowledge of facts which the writer's previous 
 work had made familiar. In this section due pro- 
 minence is given to points which have been made plain 
 by the " Memorials " and " Posthumous Works " — thus 
 disposing of certain erroneous notions and unwarrantable 
 assumptions which crept into print. Some rash writers 
 thrust themselves forward to air fancies concerning De 
 Quincey's " Autobiographic Sketches " in absolute per- 
 sonal ignorance of the author, and with very imperfect 
 knowledge of matters which they essayed to handle. 
 
 To Mr. John Ritchie Findlay (of The Scotsman) 
 I have to express my special thanks for permission to 
 incorporate his " Personal Recollections," now long out 
 of print. Mr. Findlay was one of the few persons 
 whom De Quincey was always pleased to see, and 
 whose society he thoroughly enjoyed. These " Recol- 
 lections," therefore, are penned by one whose acquaint- 
 ance with the author and his family afforded him ample 
 means of observation, and whose sympathetic feeling is 
 evident in these interesting notes. 
 
 To Messrs. William Blackwood & Sons I am 
 indebted for their kind allowance of the work of another 
 old and esteemed friend of De Quincey, the late JOHN 
 Hill Burton, Queen's Historiographer for Scotland, 
 author of " The Book Hunter." 
 
 In the bizarre chapter about " Papaverius," which I 
 am permitted to reproduce from the well-known " Book 
 Hunter," we have an odd view of De Quincey which 
 is very amusing, although the author becomes rather 
 inventive here and there. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 While Dr. Japp's survey covers the whole career, the 
 miscellaneous material of the volume may be con- 
 sidered as relating roughly to three principal periods : — 
 
 1. The "Confessions" Period. 
 
 2. The Glasgow Period, 
 
 3. The Edinburgh Period. 
 
 To the first of these belongs the interesting Notes of 
 Conversations by Richard Woodhouse — happily pre- 
 served by Dr. Garnett (of the British Museum), in 
 his admirable edition of " The Confessions " (Parchment 
 Library), before the original MS. perished in a fire on the 
 premises of MESSRS. Kegan PAUL & Co. To that firm 
 I have to express my thanks for their kind concurrence 
 in the use of Richard Woodhouse's valuable notes. 
 
 To these I am able to add a new pendant — a relic of 
 Oxford days which I lately recovered from the papers 
 of the late Dr. Goodenough, of Christ Church, who 
 was one of De Quincey's examiners when he was at 
 Worcester College. 
 
 This Latin composition appears to be the only 
 Academic piece extant. Whether it is the " Declama- 
 tion" referred to by WoODHOUSE as having brought 
 fame to De Quincey, or merely a college exercise, it 
 is, at all events, one of the elements which led Dr. 
 Goodenough to refer, so emphatically, as we find he 
 did, to the extraordinary promise given by the student's 
 written work, before that sudden and unaccountable dis- 
 appearance the day before the vivd voce examination 
 came on. For the English rendering of this Latin 
 composition I am indebted to DR. Garnett. 
 
 The two pathetic letters to Mr. Hessey, of Taylor 
 and Hessey (Proprietors of the London Magazine), 
 reporting the opium "wrestles," I received from 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 Mr. Davey, the well-known autograph dealer of Great 
 Russell Street. The originals were in his hands. 
 
 In the second or GLASGOW period, I have the kind 
 aid of Mr. Colin Rae-Brown, who has contributed his 
 well-renjembered recollections of that time. 
 
 In the third or EDINBURGH period I am indebted to 
 the Rev. Francis Jacox for his interesting " Recollec- 
 tions." Mr. James Payn, the distinguished novelist and 
 veteran editor, also permits me to include some genial 
 notes from his " Literary Memories." 
 
 In the same group is a characteristic passage from 
 the pen of the late JAMES G. Bertram — long engaged 
 with the proprietor of Tait's Magazine, to which De 
 QuiNCEY was a contributor. This I am able to reprint 
 by the courtesy of MESSRS. A. Constable & Co. 
 
 All the foregoing belong to the class of Personal and 
 Anecdotic Memories. Two other papers do not : — 
 
 1. The essay on "The Genius of De Quincey," for 
 which I owe thanks to DR. Shadworth H. HODGSON, 
 a relative of the De Quincey family. It is from his 
 volume of " Outcast Essays," and presents in a fair and 
 siiggestive form an estimate of De Quincey as a scholar, 
 a critic, and a great master of English style. 
 
 2. The ballad of " De Quincey's Revenge," a legend 
 of the Crusades. This strong and graceful composition 
 by Dr. Moir (" Delta "), now half-forgotten, seems to 
 be a thing which it is desirable to put on record in 
 De Quincey literature. The copious antiquarian notes 
 shed light on the ancient Scottish standing of the De 
 Quincey family, previous to the confiscation of their 
 estates in the time of Bruce. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 Coming now to my own recollections — "Days and 
 Nights with De Quincey," which first appeared in 
 Harper's Magazine, I can only deplore the utter loss 
 of a world of charming thoughts, anecdotes, and criticisms 
 which I might have "made a note of" — if, like Captain 
 Cuttle, I had begun soon enough and fallen regularly 
 into the habit. But it was not so — the more's the pity ! 
 
 I have ventured at the end of my revised and ex- 
 panded Notes to tell the story, for the first time, of a 
 curious incident in the history of " The Confessions." 
 
 Being the only one of the chief actors now alive, I 
 judge that I may at this time of day, without offence to 
 any person, let the public know the very real danger 
 which suddenly threatened the whole project of the 
 "Collected Works," and with them any likelihood of 
 the author persevering in the revision of his writings. 
 
 The four unpublished letters of a humorous character 
 now brought forward were addressed to me by the author^ 
 They will, I am sure, give pleasure to many readers. 
 
 Finally, I must touch on a graver subject. The 
 remarkable essay, " On the Supposed Scriptural Expres- 
 sion for Eternity," I have introduced for two reasons : 
 (i.) It was written specially for me, as the outcome of 
 many conversations with the author on the solemn 
 question of Future Punishment. (2.) Because, while it 
 appears in the American edition, it is not in any of the 
 British ones of the " Collected Works " — having hitherto 
 been used by myself only in magazine form, and in a 
 volume entitled " The Wider Hope." 
 
 I desire now to place the Essay where it may be 
 permanently accessible. The late Dr. Cox, of The 
 
XU PREFACE. 
 
 Expositor, in his well-known book entitled " Salvator 
 Mundi," dwells on this thoughtful and suggestive con- 
 tribution to one of the profoundest inquiries which can 
 engage the pilgrim's mind. Elsewhere the essay has 
 been freely discussed by theologians of different schools. 
 
 I cannot close without expressing my warm thai^ks to 
 Mrs. Baird Smith (Florence de Quincey) and miss 
 Emily de Quincey for examining these proof sheets, 
 and enabling me to refer to them on various points. I 
 have striven, by patient search and careful consideration, 
 to show, by the impressions of friends and associates of 
 varied character and attainment, what manner of man 
 De Quincey really was. 
 
 It has, indeed, been a labour of love. In old Scottish 
 fashion I have sought to place this "stone upon the 
 cairn " of the man who treated me and counselled me 
 with an almost paternal tenderness. 
 
 Above and beyond all questions of intellectual power, 
 ■of scholarship, or beauty of style, — what human lesson 
 Mands out clear and strong throughout these recollections f 
 That, surely, of perfect, unswerving kindness in daily life ; 
 an antique, chivalrous courtesy and gracious considera- 
 tion for people of every class, whatever their temper, 
 whatever their foibles. 
 
 If ever man attained unto the full measure of that 
 Scripture which ordains — "having compassion one of 
 another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous " — that 
 man was THOMAS DE Quincey. 
 
 James Hogg, 
 
 iith August, 1895. 
 
THOMAS DE QUINCEY: 
 HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES.* 
 
 I. 
 
 We should not assert for De Quincey a double per- 
 sonality. There was as little in him of the Dr. Jekyll 
 and Mr. Hyde as in men of the most ordinary turn and 
 type. But he did exhibit very unexpected traits. He 
 revealed some tendencies that seemed almost incom- 
 patible. He has been spoken of as a mere dreamer, a 
 solitary, a man apart, a kind of hermit by nature and 
 constitution, whose great aim in life was to escape from 
 everything like sociality and companionship. Greater 
 error there could hardly be. All through his life his 
 hunger for intercourse with others was very keen. Mrs. 
 Baird Smith, in one of her contributions to his Memoir, 
 finely tells how, wherever he went, he surrounded him- 
 self with friends, and had so little tact in laying down 
 rules and in keeping to hours that a good deal in his 
 sudden disappearances and settlement in new abodes 
 had to do with this — escapes from the penalties his 
 accessibility had imposed upon him. He himself seri- 
 ously repeats the confession that, though no man had 
 lived more in solitude than he had, yet that no man could - 
 ever have more regretted it. From infancy to old age, we - 
 
 * By Alexander H. Japp, LL.D. (" H. A. Page "), Author of 
 "Thomas de Quincey: His Life and Writings;" Editor of his 
 " Posthumous Works," " Memorials of the De Quincey Family," &c. 
 
 B 
 
2 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 find in him this unique combination — love of meditation, 
 and quick reactions which demanded the stimulus of 
 contact with common human nature. There was in him 
 none of the impatience with the igrtorant and rude that 
 is so commonly associated with culture, with the love of 
 meditation and of abstract thought. Wherever he goes 
 he has, in a very marked degree, the art of making him- 
 self at home. If others cannot sympathise with him in 
 his lofty thoughts and imaginings, he can sympathise 
 with them, in their thoughts and concerns, and in 
 such a measure that he gains at once their secret and 
 their affection. As we follow him through his long life, 
 we find him a kind of centre of attraction for persons of 
 the most contrasted natures, temperaments and social 
 positions : his rare courtesy, which was born of his quick 
 sympathies and kindly hospitalities, which delighted in 
 making all with whom he had to do completely at home, 
 has been celebrated by all with whoni he came into con- 
 tact; and by servants as decidedly as by their masters. 
 In his " Confessions " he tells us :— 
 
 " At no time of my life have I been a person to hold 
 myself polluted by the touch or approach of any creature 
 that wore a human shape. I cannot suppose, I will not 
 believe, that any creatures wearing the form of man or 
 woman are so absolutely rejected and reprobate outcasts, 
 that merely to talk with them inflicts pollution. On the 
 contrary, from my very earliest youth, it has been my 
 pride to converse familiarly, more Socratico, with all 
 human beings — man, woman, or child — that chance 
 might fling in my way ; for a philosopher should not see 
 with the eyes of the poor limitary creature calling him- 
 self a man of the world, filled with narrow and self- 
 regarding prejudices of birth and education, but should 
 look upon himself as a catholic creature, and as standing 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 3 
 
 in an equal relation to high and low, to educated and 
 uneducated, to the guilty and the innocent." 
 
 In endeavouring, then, to present a picture of De 
 Quincey among his friends and associates, within a 
 moderate compass, we shall find ourselves embarrassed 
 by wealth and variety rather than by lack of material ; 
 and the very contrasts in those \^'hom we shall summon 
 before our readers in his company will often have even 
 the effect of oddity which now and then only deepens 
 the interest and sometimes adds to the pathos of the 
 circumstances. 
 
 II. 
 
 De Quincey, as is well known, was born in or near 
 Manchester in 1785. His father was engaged in business, 
 and when De Quincey was quite a child he built a country 
 house in what was then a rural solitude named Greenheys. 
 It was called Greenheys Hall. De Quincey's earliest 
 recollections were connected with this house. He has 
 frequently expressed his thankfulness that his childhood 
 was passed in the country, and in the society of sisters, 
 and not of rough brothers. The first event that made 
 an impression on his mind was the death of his sister 
 Jane when he was about two. He missed her childish 
 society and prattle, but tells us that he knew little more 
 than that Jane had disappeared. She had gone away 
 but perhaps she would come back. 
 
 An attack of ague soon thereafter led to his being 
 completely in the hands of nurses ; and though he was 
 made much of and petted, and some of his lady friends 
 among them Miss Watson, (one of the two orphan 
 heiresses, whose guardian was Mrs. Schreiber, his mother's 
 bosom-friend,) thought and spoke of him as " a doll that 
 could talk," his mental development was very marked 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 and precocious. Music, certain sights and sounds of 
 nature would so affect him that he would almost shed 
 tears. When he was about six years old, his sister 
 Elizabeth died, aged nine. Her influence on him had 
 been great, and he does not fail to celebrate it in his 
 own style. " Perhaps," he says, " the natural precedency 
 in authority of years, united to the tender humility with 
 which she declined to assert it, had been among the 
 fascinations of her presence;" and his apostrophe to 
 her, and his description of the effect on himself of 
 seeing her lying in her coffin, belong to the most 
 touching and effective of his writings. At all events, 
 it left a very lasting result ' on his mind, for many 
 references are made to it even in his productions of 
 later days. 
 
 The death of his father shortly after confirmed the 
 impression. An able man, who had so devoted himself 
 to business that all had prospered with him, yet with a 
 great deal of culture and marked ability in the literary 
 way, having himself written accounts of his travels, some 
 portions of which were published and received the 
 praise of discerning critics. He had been early 
 threatened with phthisis, and had been ordered abroad. 
 He only returned home to die. His famous son, in later 
 days, was wont to regret that he had known so little of 
 his father, who, from all he could discover, was a good 
 and upright man, and fitted perhaps to accord him. 
 the sympathy which he often failed to find. 
 
 HI. 
 
 Changes soon came on the death of his father.. The 
 Rev. Samuel Hall, who had been a very intimate friend 
 both, of his father and mother, and who was the most 
 
HIS. FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 5 
 
 active of the guardians appointed under his father's will, 
 was a clergyman in Salford; and it was decided that 
 Thomas and his elder brother William, who had hitherto 
 been at a public school, should now go daily to Mr. Hall's 
 for their lessons. Mr. Hall, it is evident, was a most 
 conscientious, methodic man, with a real interest in the 
 welfare of the family, but with no sort of sentiment or 
 any touch of that tact of sympathy which goes for so 
 much in the management of boys — at all events, such boys 
 as our subject. William was of a very different tempera- 
 ment from Thomas. He was active, spirited, haughty, 
 adventurous, and sought to engage the weaker younger 
 brother in all, his diversions and escapades. On their 
 walks from Greenheys to Salford daily he found means 
 to gratify his tastes. He picked a quarrel with some 
 mill-boys, and, though his contempt for Thomas's 
 " physics " was intense, he aimed at bringing him up to 
 his own standard by putting him into positions of the 
 greatest risk. More than once Thomas was taken 
 prisoner by the mothers and sisters of the boys with 
 whom they had fought, to be treated by them in such a 
 manner as made him the less disposed to enter on such 
 contests any more. 
 
 Even the pastimes of the two brothers bore the 
 impress of the temperament of the elder. They 
 established themselves as the sovereigns of two 
 imaginary kingdoms — that of William always exer- 
 cising a kind of suzerainty over that of Thomas ; 
 and the suggestion to'Tiiomas that the people of his 
 kingdom had tails grieved the sensitive little boy as 
 much as though it had referred to something real. The 
 passage in the " Autobiographic Sketches " in which he 
 tells, of this is at -once whimsical, humorous, and 
 pathetic. 
 
6 . THOMAS DE QUINCEY: 
 
 William's mind was active too. He alighted on the 
 most extraordinary ideas, and was fain to work them out. 
 He tried to invent a machine that would enable him to 
 walk up perpendicular walls like a fly : he was much 
 exercised by the problem whether all the people on the 
 earth could fight all the ghosts were they but endowed 
 with powers of using arms and inflicting wounds ; and 
 he kept everybody about him in a condition of unrest 
 and anxiety. 
 
 De Quincey would fain attribute to this rough 
 discipline some beneficial results. But for this he thinks 
 he might have passed into such a condition of helpless 
 dreamy melancholy as would have been fatal. But, 
 happily for him, it was not in the nature of such arrange- 
 ments to last very long. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Mrs. de Quincey got tired of Greenheys and went to 
 live in Bath. William, who had shown some turn for 
 painting, was sent as a pupil to the then famous Mr. 
 Loutherbourg, the Royal Academician, and before long 
 died there of fever. Thomas and his younger brother 
 Richard, of whom he writes so delightfully in the " Auto- 
 biographic Sketches" as "Pink," (telling that he was 
 called " Pink " because he was so handsome,) were sent 
 to the Bath Grammar School, then under Mr. Morgan, 
 a distinguished Etonian and fine scholar. De Quincey 
 was captivated by Greek, and made remarkable progress 
 in it to the delight of Mr. Morgan, who was wont to 
 point him out to visitors. While he was at this school he 
 made the acquaintance of Lord Westport — an acquaint- 
 ance which grew to intimacy. It is quite clear from 
 letters and other documents that both by his _ teachers 
 
HISiFRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. f 
 
 and his fellow-scholars De Quincey was looked upon as 
 a boy of the greatest promise — in fact, as already a 
 celebrity. He himself tells us that while here, much 
 encouraged by Mr. Morgan's attainments and coun- 
 tenance, he so devoted himself to Greek that he could 
 talk quite familiarly in it ; and that, as he read any 
 English ordinary book or newspaper, he was constantly 
 translating the English into Greek as he went along, and 
 so mastered it, that Mr. Morgan would say of him, " that 
 boy could harangue a Greek audience with as much ease 
 as you or I could an English one," and so on. 
 
 While here he met with an accident, having been 
 struck in the head with a ruler, which left more serious 
 results than were at first suspected. He was attended 
 by Dr. Mapleton of Bath, whose letters about him, and 
 letters of .schoolfellows and others that still exist 
 making inquiries as to. his state, set this fact beyond 
 all doubt. 
 
 V. 
 
 His mother, we are told, withdrew him from the Bath 
 Grammar School because she was shocked at hearing 
 of compliments paid to him in his presence. Mrs. 
 de Quincey was the daughter of an officer who had 
 latterly held some post in the King's household — a post 
 of such importance as entitled him to be ranked as one 
 of the armigeri, or esquires — a thing on which De 
 Quincey in his " Autobiographic Sketches " is fain to 
 be a little jocular ; but, descended from soldiers, Mrs. 
 de Quincey, though a woman of fine intellect and highly 
 conscientious, deeply concerned for the welfare of her 
 children, wais yet in some measure inclined to drill and 
 to be exacting as to points of order and propriety. It is 
 much to be feared, she had too little sympathy with them 
 
■8 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 and toleration for them in the peculiarities of character 
 which, it is evident, very early made their appearance in 
 her boys, and certainly not less in Thomas than in the 
 others. They were apt to have ideas and ways of their 
 own, and to stick to their own ideas and ways. The 
 serious manner in which she dealt with them for little 
 tricks and pranks, such as any boys might have been 
 guilty of, is indicative of character. A very staid, 
 dignified, prudent, well-bred woman, with a gift for 
 expressing herself in very clear idiomatic English, as her 
 letters show, and fully justifying what her son said of her 
 in regard to her ability with the pen. 
 
 But she perceived at a very early date a vein of 
 erratic and, as she regarded it, self-assertive character 
 in her boys, and was fain to curb it. She took such 
 ways to do so as did not aid the impression on their 
 minds of her loveableness. She was always on the 
 watch, lest anything should be done to encourage them 
 in this, and was very slow to perceive, or, at any rate, to 
 show that she perceived, anything uncommon or clever 
 or promising in them. On their side, they regarded her 
 as a jealous mistress, rather than as a fond mother. We 
 have proof of this, alas ! in only too many ways. She 
 removed De Quincey's younger brother " Pink " from a 
 school where he was happy and comfortable and doing 
 well to one where the master was a simple tyrant, fond 
 of physical chastisement, but a religious professor ; so 
 that " Pink " ran away to sea, and did not return for 
 some years, and, when he did, though he revealed himself 
 to Thomas, he did not do so to his mother, and such 
 difficulties arose from this cause as in her mind threw 
 serious doubts on his identity, and led her to say at first 
 that Thomas and the rest had been victimized by an 
 impostor. 
 
HIS: FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 9 
 
 Another proof is found in Thomas's many references 
 to her, which are always couched in a tone of admiration 
 for her grace and self-control and prudent management, 
 but 'as. clearly suggest a certain sense of coldness and 
 distance and stately unbendingness on her part. Here is 
 one of Thomas's pictures of her : — 
 
 " It may seem odd, according to most people's ideas 
 of mothers, that some part of my redundant love did not 
 overflow upon mine. And the more so, if the reader 
 happened to know that she was one whom her grown-up 
 friends made the object of idolising reverence. But she 
 delighted not in infancy, nor infancy in her. The very 
 greatness of some qualities in her mind made this 
 impossible. Let me make a sketch of her ; for she well 
 merits it. Figure to yourself a woman of admirable 
 manners, in fact, as much as any person I have ever 
 known, distinguished by ladylike tranquillity and repose, 
 and even by self-possession, but also freezing in excess. 
 Austere she was in a degree which fitted her for the 
 lady-president of rebellious nunneries. Rigid in her 
 exactions of duty from those around her, but also from. 
 herself ; upright, sternly conscientious, munificent in her 
 charities ; pure-minded in so absolute a degree that you 
 would have been tempted to call her 'holy' — she yet 
 could not win hearts by the graciousness of her manner. 
 That quality, which shone so brightly in my sister, and 
 the expansive love which distinguished both her and 
 myself, we had from our father. And a peculiarity there 
 was about my mother which is not found, or anything 
 like it, in one mother out of five hundred. Usually 
 mothers defend their own cubs, right or wrong ; and 
 they also think favourably of any pretensions to praise 
 which those cubs may put forward. Not so my mother. 
 
10 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Were we taxed by interested persons with some impro- 
 priety of conduct? Trial by jury, English laws of 
 evidence, all were forgotten ; and we were found guilty 
 on the bare affidavit of the angry accuser. Did a visitor 
 say a flattering thing of a talent or accomplishment 
 possessed by one or other of us? My mother protested 
 so solemnly against the possibility that we could possess 
 either the one or the other, that we children held it a 
 point of filial duty to believe ourselves to be the very scum 
 and refuse of the universe. Yet, with all this absence of 
 indulgent thoughts toward us or any of us, no mother 
 can ever have lived who was more vigilant to see that we 
 received to the last fraction every attention due to our 
 health, to the decorum of our manners, and to the pro- 
 prieties of our dress. ... That I do not exaggerate the 
 austerity of my mother's character, and the awe which it 
 breathed around her, is certain from what I recollect of 
 the deep impression produced upon her servants. Except 
 as regarded the waiting at table, she never communicated 
 with them directly, but only through a housekeeper. 
 Sometimes, however, when a feud arose among them, it 
 was remembered that in the last resort an appeal lay to 
 ' mistress.' But rare were the cases in which this final 
 remedy was tried. And as one out of a hundred similar 
 testimonies to this impression, there occurs to me the 
 lively mot of a housemaid who, on being asked why, in 
 case of a supposed wrong, she had not spoken to her 
 mistress, replied — ' Speak to mistress ! Would I speak 
 to a ghost ? ' " 
 
 Even in the case of the girls — his two sisters, Jane 
 and Mary — they were apt in relation to their brothers to 
 do certain things, and to do them in such ways as their 
 mother had riot been consulted about, and perhaps would 
 
HIS .-FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. TEI 
 
 not have had her approval, if she had been consulted. 
 And this mostly in matters where the girls were 
 anxiously aiming at keeping the boys on good terms 
 with their inother, and to preseive alive in them a sense 
 of home-feeling. 
 
 Whether Mrs. de Quincey withdrew Thomas from 
 the Bath Grammar School on the grounds alleged, or 
 merely in consequence of the injury he had received to 
 his head, we need not here inquire further ; but it is 
 certain that when he recovered so far as to resume his 
 studies she kept him at home and engaged a tutor for 
 him. This tutor was a Frenchman, who, as Miss de 
 Quincey tells, had escaped from his own country during 
 the Revolution, glad to keep his head where it was 
 originally placed ; and who clearly had a sad job in 
 managing his precocious pupil. " Oh, Master Tomma, 
 dp be parswaded ! do be parswaded ! " were the sounds 
 too often to be heard issuing from the tutorial room ; 
 and the Frenchman's authority was not likely to be 
 increased when it became known to the pupil that the 
 tutor had fallen in love with his mother and had wished 
 to marry hei^ ! Not improbably the complications 
 arising from this situation and the need of a more 
 decisive control for Thomas led to the abandonment of 
 this plan ; though we have in it some proof of the truth 
 of what De Quincey wrote when he said that at Bath, 
 as a boy, he saw a good deal of the French refugees, 
 and had many opportunities of talking with them, and 
 learned much from them. 
 
 One of the cheering elements at this time for the 
 young sufferer were the visits paid by Lady Carbery 
 (formerly Miss Watson) to Bath. She never ceased to 
 be affectionately interested in her " little doll that could 
 talk." 
 
:i2 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 VI. 
 
 The next move made on Thomas's behalf was char- 
 acteristic. He was sent to Winkfield School, where for 
 some little time "Pink" had already been. We know 
 that this school was chosen by the mother more on 
 account of the religious reputation of the master than 
 of anything else. De Quincey, at all events, had nothing 
 to say in favour of the school as regards the things that 
 would have made it most suitable for a boy like him. 
 It was a small school, only from twenty to thirty boys ; 
 Mr. Spencer being also rector of the parish. It is 
 evident that though, on De Quincey's own statement, 
 iMr. Spencer was no great scholar, he and his family 
 .found a source of much satisfaction and pleasure in the 
 school-work ; Miss Spencer doing not a little to forward 
 more " liberal " studies than is_ often commended to the 
 boys at public schools, lending books of general litera- 
 ture to the lads and discussing their contents with them. 
 A literary magazine called The Observer was issued, to 
 which De Quincey contributed. Mrs. de Quincey no 
 doubt had good reasons for feeling satisfied with the 
 school, and with " Pink's " life and progress there ; but 
 what may well have been an excellent and suitable 
 school for a boy like " Pink," may not have had quite 
 the same recommendation for the elder brother, who 
 had made such remarkable progress both at Salford and 
 at the Bath Grammar School. De Quincey's stay at 
 Winkfield, however, was not unprofitable, nor was it 
 wholly uncongenial, though he himself says that he 
 was entirely without the stimulus he had found so fully 
 at the Bath Grammar School. He had quite recovered 
 from the injury he had received, and was more spirited, 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. l^ 
 
 lively, and inclined for companionship there than one 
 would have expected him to be. He was held in much 
 regard by the other boys, several of whom became close 
 friends of his, more especially two brothers Tom and 
 Edward Grinfield, with whom, for a time after leaving 
 Winkfield, he kept up a correspondence. Thomas 
 Grinfield became Rector of Clifton, and Edward also 
 had a living in the Church of England, and contributed 
 largely to theological literature and to Greek scholar- 
 ship. The latter, De Quincey met again at Oxford. 
 
 It was while at Winkfield that De Quincey sent in 
 for competition to the proprietors of the " Juvenile 
 Library" a verse translation of. Horace's twenty-second 
 Ode. The first prize was awarded to Leigh Hunt, De 
 Quincey 's senior by a year, who had just left Christ's 
 Hospital, where he had been " first deputy Grecian." 
 De Quincey stood third, but, as he himself tells, the 
 opportunity was given for anyone interested to judge 
 in the matter as the three versions of the ode were 
 published in the magazine. Dr. R. Garnett, who printed 
 the version of De Quincey in his edition of the " Confes- 
 sions " in the Parchment Library Series, holds that De 
 Quincey should have had the first prize^ — an opinion he 
 was not, however, the first to avow, as we shall see by- 
 and-by. Here is De Quincey's translation — surely a 
 very finished- performance for a boy not yet fifteen : — 
 
 THIRD PRIZE TRANSLATION OF HORACE, 
 
 (Ode 22, Lib. I.) 
 
 By Thomas Quincey. Aged 15. 
 
 Of Mr. Spencer's Academy, Winkfield, Hants. 
 
 Fuscus ! the man whose heart is pure. 
 
 Whose hfe, unsullied by offence, 
 Needs not the jav'lines of the Moor 
 In his defence. 
 
X4 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Should he o'er Lybia's burning sands 
 Fainting pursue his breathless way 
 No bow he'd seek to arm his hands 
 Against dismay. 
 
 Quivers of poisoned shafts he'd scorn, 
 
 Nor, though unarmed, would feel a dread 
 To pass where Caucasus forlorn 
 
 Rears his huge head. 
 
 In his own conscious worth secure. 
 
 Fearless he'd roam amidst his foes. 
 Where fabulous Hydaspes pure 
 
 Romantic flows. 
 
 For late as in the Sabine wood 
 Singing my Lalage I strayed, 
 Unarmed I was, a wolf there stood ; 
 He fled afraid. 
 
 Larger than which one ne'er has seen 
 In warlike Daunia's beechen groves, 
 Nor yet in Juba's land, where e'en 
 The lion roves. 
 
 Send me to dreary barren lands 
 
 Where never summer zephyrs play. 
 Where never sun dissolves the bands 
 Of ice away. 
 
 Send me again to scorching realms 
 Where not one cot affords a seat. 
 And where no shady pines or elms 
 Keep off the heat. 
 
 In every clime, in every isle. 
 
 Me Lalage shall still rejoice ; 
 I'll think of her enchanting smile 
 
 And of her voice. 
 Attestation. 
 The aforegoing is the unassisted translation of Master Thomas 
 Quincey, a student of this academy, under the age of fifteen years. 
 Edward Spencer, Rector of Winkfield, Wilts. 
 June 3, 1800. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1$. 
 
 In one of his mother's letters to him at Winkfield we 
 find the following — interesting on two accounts — further 
 record of Lady Carbery, and light on his mother's way 
 of dealing with a boyish lapse. 
 
 "Poor Lord Carbery continues very ill : I am persuaded 
 never likely to recover. They have lodgings in Milsom 
 Street for the present ; but probably will remove to the 
 Hot Wells; Her ladyship was here on Wednesday 
 evening, and is as handsome and amiable as ever ; but I 
 fear terribly surrounded with Irish people of rank who 
 wish to make her racket about like themselves. . . . 
 
 "My dear boy, I will never after this mention the 
 affair of Bowes, and perhaps shall never think of it again ; 
 but just to remark that you are wrong to blame Mrs. 
 Pratt about it. You acknowledge that the appearance 
 of being with Bowes was unfavourable, and as long as 
 we are weak creatures unable to form certain or intuitive 
 judgments, we must continue to get the help we can in 
 forming our opinions ; appearances, unfortunately, are 
 all we have to judge actions by, and those on the 
 particular action in question were really against you. If 
 therefore Mr. and Mrs. Pratt put a construction upon 
 your intentions, which excused you with respect to them- 
 selves, surely they did a thing as kind as possible, for 
 they could not think it was right for you to be with 
 Bowes, either with respect to me or for your own 
 sake." 
 
 The affair of Bowes was nothing but the most innocent 
 schoolboy freak referred to in the Memoir, a matter of 
 which not one parent in ten would ever have taken any 
 notice. 
 
1 6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 VII. 
 
 All this while correspondence had been kept up with 
 young Lord Westport, who was inclined not only to 
 make a friend of De Quincey, but to look up to him as 
 a kind of mentor. Lord Westport 's tutor, the Rev. 
 Thomas Grace, and his father, the Earl of Altamont, had 
 evidently been as favourably impressed by De Quincey 
 as Lord Westport himself had been. The plan of going 
 on a visit to Ireland with them had been often spoken 
 of; and, on De Quincey leaving Winkfield School, 
 opportunity was found to carry it out. Many arrange- 
 ments, of course, had in these days to be made for such 
 a journey, when posting and slow-sailing mail packets 
 were the only means of travel ; and, of course, it was a 
 great event for the young scholar. Here is part of a 
 letter from Mr. Grace, which shows how the visit was 
 looked forward to by himself and Lord Altamont : — 
 
 " Westport is not put down in many of the old.,maps, 
 but it is situated exactly on the spot marked Newport in 
 them, at the eastern extremity of Clew Bay, and due 
 west of Castlebar ; its distance from Dublin is one hundred 
 and thirty-five Irish miles. It is not certain that I shall 
 go all the way, perhaps only to the Head ; but in this 
 you will find no disadvantage. Lord Westport is to 
 have a French servant, who, I hope, will speak nothing 
 to either of you but in that language, and if it is not 
 Westport's fault, you will more than supply my place. 
 Lord Altamont expresses great pleasure at the prospect 
 of your society, and I have no doubt but you will be 
 pleased with him and improved by his conversation." 
 
 De Quincey has himself told in outline the whole story 
 
lIIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 17 
 
 of that trip, and letters exist to attest that he was 
 accurate down to the merest details. He tells his mother 
 and sisters a great deal about the journey, that, for one 
 thing, in the packet he met the Countess of Conyngham. 
 " Her ladyship," he says, " who sat the whole time in her 
 coach, seeing me sitting on deck reading, called me to 
 the coach window, where she talked with me for about five 
 minutes, and then made me come into the coach and stay 
 the remainder of the day with her. She conversed with 
 me for above eight hours, and seemed a very pleasant and 
 sensible woman. She is pretty, and something or rather 
 very like a person I have seen, but whose name I cannot 
 recollect. She gave me an invitation to come and see 
 her at Slaine (Lord Conyngham's country-seat), about 
 twenty-four miles from Dublin." 
 
 He facetiously describes a drive he had from Dunleary 
 to Dublin in a "jingle," which he defines as "a rotten 
 sociable drawn by one skeleton ; " describes the last 
 sitting of the Irish House of Lords, at which he was 
 present, and also an installation of the Knights of the 
 Blue Riband, Lord Altamont being one, and remarks 
 that every one comes to Lord Altamont "with open 
 mouth to tell him they hear that he is soon to be created 
 a marquis." In the Cathedral he again met Lady 
 Conyngham, and was introduced to her husband, who 
 renewed the pressing invitation to Slaine, which De 
 Quincey could not accept as they were leaving for 
 Westport next day. 
 
 " Directly behind me," he writes, " stood Lord Grey 
 de Wilton. A Mrs. Sparrow, who was near us, 
 happening to ask some questions of me respecting Lord 
 Altamont's dress. Lord Grey instantly looked at me, 
 and asked if my name was not De Quincey: on my 
 answering 'Yes,' 'Oh, sir,' said he, 'you're a young 
 
 C 
 
1 8 THOMAS DE QUINCEV : 
 
 countryman of mine, and so we must shake hands.' 
 How his lordship should know me, I can't tell, because 
 I never recollect having seen him, except once or twice 
 when I was at the Manchester Grammar School on 
 speech day." 
 
 The account of the journey to Westport is very naive 
 and attractive in many ways — certainly not alone for his 
 description of that meeting with Miss Blake, the sister of 
 the Dowager Countess of Erroll, and of the impression 
 she made on him — educing in him for the first time, 
 according to his own report in the "Autobiographic 
 Sketches," those feelings of admiration and love which 
 he had never before felt towards any woman. But it is 
 very noticeable that, though he mentions the meeting 
 with Miss Blake in a letter to his mother, he is silent 
 there with regard to the element which he elsewhere 
 celebrates in such characteristic style. In a letter to his 
 sister Mary, he thus describes Westport : — 
 
 " The house is fine and large and not much injured by 
 the French and the rebels. The grounds are very 
 beautiful, though not kept in the very best order. There 
 are two parks, fine groves and lawns, through which runs 
 a fine river, every now and then rolling with a tremendous 
 noise over artificial weirs. We spend all our time in 
 reading, writing, riding, bathing, hunting, shooting and 
 boating. All these, except the two last, the Irish think 
 it a disgrace not to understand. Notwithstanding the 
 dangerous places through which we are continually 
 riding, I have never yet been thrown." 
 
 It is quite evident that De Quincey approved himself 
 as much the companion of the father as of the son, 
 entering with interest and zest into all his works and 
 improvements, and often going round large portions of 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 19 
 
 his estates with him : as well as in some measure re- 
 awakening in the Earl his taste for the classics, of 
 which they read and talked much together. The ode 
 which De Quincey had translated was often spoken of, 
 and it was read to a party there of whom Lord Morton 
 was one. " Lord Morton," he says, " took particular 
 interest in literature; and it was, in fact, through his 
 kindness that for the first time in my life I found myself 
 somewhat in the situation of a literarj' lion." Lord 
 Morton had read and compared the trio of translations 
 and " protested loudly that the case admitted of no 
 doubt ; that gross injustice had been done me ; and, as 
 the ladies of the family were much influenced by this 
 opinion, I thus came not only to wear the laurel in their 
 estimation, but also with the advantageous addition of 
 having suffered some injustice. I was not only a victor, 
 but a victor in misfortune." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Various letters addressed to De Quincey after his 
 return from Ireland by Lord Altamont have been pre- 
 served, and abundantly prove the friendly and affec- 
 tionate feelings that had been produced towards him. 
 We believe we cannot do better than present some of 
 these letters here, as it is clear enough that Lord 
 Altamont and his family were proud to rank De Quincey 
 among their friends. Here is letter No. i : — 
 
 "Westport House, Sept. 22, 1800. 
 
 "My dear De Quincey,— I am to thank you much 
 
 for your kind letter from Parkgate, which reached me 
 
 yesterday. The only letter which came here for you 
 
 since you left us has been carefully forwarded. I shall 
 
 C 2 
 
20 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 receive your ode, or anything else from your pen, with 
 particular pleasure, whenever your leisure allows you to 
 bestow any of your valuable time less worthily than your 
 present pursuit, which is, and ought to be your own 
 improvement. 
 
 " I trust you will continue your recollection of your 
 Irish friends ; and as you were so good an Englishman 
 here, so I hope you will argue for us when we are un- 
 justly censured by those who, from not having claims of 
 their own, may have been refused those marks of atten- 
 tion and regard which I can answer for your having met 
 with everywhere— from the wilds of Croagh Phadrig — 
 vulgariter Crook Patrick — to the drawing-room at St. 
 James's ; and I really should regret having made your 
 acquaintance if I did not hope for a continuance of your 
 friendship and remembrance. 
 
 " Lady Altamont is not yet arrived, but I expect her 
 hourly: she will join me in thanking your mother for 
 allowing you to come over here. I hope most sincerely 
 that you got back to her in perfect health and safety. I 
 am afraid Lord Pickle was a tart companion on your 
 journey. I don't expect his disposition to riot was 
 controlled by the sagacity of his mentor Largeaux [his 
 French valet], 
 
 " Our stormy weather has begun here, and a part of 
 Mr. Campbell's dam, in which you may recollect I was 
 engaged to keep up water behind my house, has been 
 carried away, and gone I know not where — perhaps to 
 add to the soil on the shores of our next Western neigh- 
 bour. North America. , . . 
 
 " The season has been generally not healthful in Ire- 
 land ; but we are promised abundance and better times in 
 future. Adieu, my dear little friend : pray recollect West- 
 port enough to consent to return to it when you cannot 
 
HIS ERIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 21 
 
 cortsent to employ yourself better. Believe me, affection- 
 ately and sincerely yours, " Altamont." 
 
 This letter was addressed to De Quincey, "the Rt. 
 Honble. Lord Carbery's, Laxton Hall, near Stamford, 
 Leicestershire," proof, if proof were needed, that De 
 Quincey paid a visit there, as he says in the chapter 
 headed Laxton in the " Autobiographic Sketches," when 
 he did something to teach Lady Carbery Greek, in return 
 for some aid from her in Hebrew. 
 
 The Altamont family had been most desirous that De 
 Quincey should join Lord Westport at Eton — a thing 
 which we are somewhat surprised to learn that Mrs. de 
 Quincey was inclined to regard with favour. We have 
 documentary evidence in the shape of letters from De 
 Quincey himself to prove that the objection to Eton 
 came from him : he had visited Lord Westport at Eton, 
 and had there seen some things which did not attract 
 him to it. The next thing thought of for him by his 
 guardians was that he should go to the Manchester 
 Grammar School, where, after a year or two, he would 
 secure a certain sum per annum which would do much 
 to make his circumstances comfortable at college, as all 
 the interest from his share of the sum left by his father 
 did not yield more than ;^i 50 per annum. His father 
 died young, and had for some years prior to his death 
 been in bad health ; so that it speaks much for his 
 business tact that he should have left so much as, divided 
 among the children, would yield per annum ;^iSO to four 
 boys and ;^ioo per annum to two sisters, besides an 
 income to his widow. We shall devote another section 
 to the Manchester Grammar School ; we have said this 
 much here to preface the remark, that the second letter 
 from Westport was addressed to " the care of G. Lawson, 
 
22 THOMAS DE QUINCEY:-- 
 
 Esq., Long Millgate, Manchester," — the Manchester 
 Grammar School, and that by this time Lord Altamont 
 had become Marquis of Sligo, and Lord Westport 
 advanced to the courtesy-title of Earl of Altamont. 
 Here it is : — 
 
 " Westport, Jan. 12, 1801. 
 
 "My dear Little Friend, — I have just had the 
 pleasure of a line from you, after having for some months 
 expected it. Your remembrance of me is highly 
 gratifying. 
 
 " I am just now recovering from a severe and danger- 
 ous illness — two fevers, the one following the other, 
 which brought me to death's door, and from which I have 
 escaped most miraculously. I am not yet sufficiently 
 recovered to think of setting out upon a journey, which 
 keeps me in Ireland, though I purposed to have passed 
 the last two months in London. 
 
 "In course of the Spring I still purpose being in 
 England, and I trust I shall not leave it without seeing 
 you somewhere or another. I have very flattering 
 accounts of my boy : he has profited by your good 
 example. As to the long-promised ode, I shall receive 
 it with much pleasure whenever you are so good as to 
 send it. I am sorry, however, that I cannot undertake 
 the polishing part of it, though I imagine it will not 
 require any, from the specimen of a similar kind which 
 I saw from the same hand. 
 
 "Direct always to me in Dublin. We are perfectly 
 tranquil here, and better off in point of food than you 
 are in England. My great water- works which you saw 
 me engaged in have succeeded to my utmost satis- 
 faction. Whenever you pay me another visit you will 
 find great alterations and improvements made here. 
 You are in the midst of industry in Manchester, and I 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 23 
 
 make no doubt profiting by it. It is the real source of 
 wealth, prosperity and happiness, both national and 
 individual. Were I where you are I would soon under- 
 stand the process of cotton-making. When in LuSatia 
 and Silesia I learnt check-making, and brought it home 
 here in tolerable perfection. I never indeed went any- 
 where without trying to pick up something for the 
 improvement of my neighbourhood. You tasted the 
 ale which I learnt to make by a visit to Lord Bath's, 
 and you saw also, I believe, the industry of every kind 
 round Westport exceeds that of all the rest of Ireland 
 through which you passed. Believe me, 
 
 " Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 "Sligo," 
 
 Clearly, a , man of real productive and organising 
 character — always learning something, anxious to im- 
 prove his neighbourhood. O si sic omnes ! 
 
 The next letter is dated from Grafton Street, London, 
 May Sth, 1801, and is as follows : — 
 
 " My dear De QuiNCEY, — Your letter directed to 
 Dublin came to me from thence to-day. I shall be very 
 glad to get the long-promised ode when it is completed. 
 
 " The disorder you complain of is certainly of recent 
 acquirement, and therefore may the more easily be got 
 the better of, as I sincerely hope it will and speedily. 
 When we were more acquainted you had no disposition 
 to idleness at all. I have been here some weeks, and 
 have just sent my boy back to school, having had him 
 here for the holidays. If he had as little of the disease 
 of idleness as you have, I should do more with him than 
 I expect to do ; but he has a great deal of good in him, 
 and what is not right I hope is corrigible. I wish you 
 rnay be at leisure to pay us another visit at Westport 
 
24 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 soon. Our good news recently will, I hope, ensure our 
 tranquillity ; but I am sorry to assure you. from the 
 extravagant demands of the First Consul, peace is out 
 of the question for the present. Believe me, with sincere 
 regards, "Yours affectionately, 
 
 "SLIGO." 
 
 IX. 
 
 Very touching it is to read his protests against going 
 to the Manchester Grammar School. He was eager to 
 proceed to the University, for which he held he was 
 perfectly prepared. His mother and guardians argued 
 that his income was not enough to enable him to do 
 this with any measure of comfort. He must either go 
 to Manchester or enter a lawyer's office. Of the two 
 evils he chose what he thought the least. He went to 
 Manchester. But the discipline of the school — the whole 
 of the arrangements which he held made no due allow- 
 ance for exercise and fresh air — combined with what he 
 found the utter incompetence, pretence and pedantry of 
 the headmaster, Mr. Lawson, put him sadly at odds with 
 the life of the place and all that went on there. From one 
 who knew well about the Manchester Grammar School 
 and Mr. Lawson, we learn that the formula with which 
 Mr. Lawson was too much in the habit of addressing his 
 pupils was — " Psha, blockhead ! " That formula would 
 hardly fit De Quincey. He fell into low spirits, which 
 by-and-by brought on ill-health. Notwithstanding all 
 this there arose some relief on the monotony and shadow 
 of his. life. First of all, he found that some of the boys 
 there were remarkable boys — in some things, at all 
 events, his equals; in other things, it may be, one or 
 two were even his superiors. One there was who, for 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 2$ 
 
 knowledge and power of philosophic thought, extorted 
 his admiration on their first meeting — one who, on the 
 evidences of Christianity, could present wholly new 
 ideas, and, in De Quincey's opinion, picked a lock which 
 neither Grotius nor Paley had quite succeeded in opening ; 
 and had thus indicated the outline of a better work than 
 either had accomplished.. De Quincey's admiration was 
 awakened and also his desire to attain closer friendship 
 with this youthful seer in the guise of a Manchester 
 Grammar School-boy. In his " Confessions " he does 
 
 full justice to the boy G , and the stimulating and 
 
 suggestive character of his talk. The boy G was 
 
 none other than Ashurst Gilbert, later Bishop of 
 Chichester. But he found out as time went on that 
 Gilbert did not altogether stand alone, and he sets 
 down his deliberate estimate of the boys then at the 
 Manchester Grammar School in these terms : — 
 
 " I learned," he says, " to feel a deep respect for my 
 new schoolfellows ; deep it was then, and a larger 
 experience made it deeper. I have since known many 
 literary men — men whose profession was literature, 
 and who sometimes had with one special section or nook 
 of literature an acquaintance critically minute. But 
 amongst such men I have found but three or four who 
 had a knowledge which came as near to what I should 
 consider a comprehensive knowledge as really existed, 
 among these boys collectively. What one boy had not, 
 another had ; and thus, by continual intercourse, the 
 fragmentary contributions of one being integrated by the 
 fragmentary contributions of others, gradually the attain- 
 ments of each separate individual became, in some 
 degree, the collective attainments of the whole senior 
 common room." 
 
 Mrs. Baird Smith has thus furnished evidence that, if 
 
26 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 De Quincey, to his surprise, found the attainments of his 
 schoolfellows noticeable, they did not fail to carry away 
 similar impressions regarding him, and that he never 
 passed out of the remembrance of some at least among 
 them. She writes : — 
 
 " I have been trying to find, but as yet without success, 
 the place where he mentions in his works that, of his 
 two schoolmates in the first form of the Manchester 
 Grammar School, the one became a bishop, and the 
 other was hanged for sheep-stealing ; so at least he had 
 heard in later years. So far as our poor friend the sheep- 
 stealer is concerned, I cannot be sorry we have had no 
 confirmation of the report of that catastrophe. But 
 some few years after my father's death we had a most 
 pleasing confirmation of the other part of the account, in 
 making the greatly-prized friendship of the daughter of 
 this very schoolfellow, the bishop. At her house we 
 met the delightful and gracious old man himself, who had 
 remembered my father with life-long regard and interest. 
 My father's enduring regard for his schoolfellow, the 
 
 young G of the ' Confessions,' is ' writ large ' in his 
 
 remembrances of the Manchester Grammar School." 
 
 Another circumstance that arose to reconcile him for a 
 while longer to Long Millgate was the appearance there 
 of Lady Carbery on a long visit She not only found 
 means of entertaining him, but brought to the school at 
 special times followings of distinguished people such as 
 rejoiced Mr. Lawson's heart. " She did not forego," 
 De Quincey says, " her purpose of causing me to shine 
 under every angle ; " and we may be sure that, if any 
 means had suggested themselves to Mr. Lawson of 
 binding his clever pupil to Manchester, he would not 
 have been slow to make use of them. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOClAI-ES. 2j 
 
 Another attraction there was of a very different kind. 
 A family of the name of Clowes had been from earliest 
 days great friends of his father. One of this family was 
 the Rev. John Clowes, M.A., Rector of St. John's, Man- 
 chester. He was a Swedenborgian, and by his writings 
 and otherwise had done not a little to recommend 
 Swedenborgian doctrines to members and clergymen of 
 the Church of England. De Quincey, whose thoughtful 
 meditative ways made him a fit companion for scholarly 
 people advanced in years, became a privileged friend of 
 old Mr. Clowes, and, as he says, found free admittance 
 at any time and at such times as most others would not 
 have been admitted at all. He speaks of the reverential 
 apostolic look of Mr. Clowes, and says he always 
 reminded him of the Apostle John. De Quincey gives 
 some taste of the conversation that passed between them 
 on poetry, the classics, literature and so on, but always 
 the conversation at last turned to sacred things. The 
 house for its quietude and air of complete half-dimmed 
 repose was like the Castle of Indolence, and De Quincey 
 tells us that the old butler always put him in mind, by 
 his noiseless step, of the porter or usher of that castle, 
 who was shod in felt. Here, surely, is a very fine 
 picture of this old and reverent friend of our subject : — 
 
 " Daily and consciously he was loosing all ties which 
 bound him to earlier recollections ; and in particular 
 I remember — ^because the instance was connected with 
 my last visit as it proved^— that some time he was en- 
 gaged daily in renouncing with solemnity — though often 
 enough in cheerful words — book after book of classical 
 literature, in which he had once taken particular delight. 
 Several of these, after taking his final glance at a few 
 passages to which a pencil-mark on the margin directed 
 
28- THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 his eye, he delivered to me as memorials in time 
 to come of himself. The last of the books given to 
 me, under these circumstances, was a Greek ' Odyssey ' 
 in Clarke's edition. 'This,' said he, 'is nearly the 
 sole book remaining to me of my classical library, 
 which for some years I have been dispersing among 
 my friends. Homer I retained to the last, and the 
 ' Odyssey ' by preference to the ' Iliad,' both in com- 
 pliance with my own taste, and because this very copy 
 was my chosen companion for evening amusement 
 during my freshman's term at Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, whither I went in the spring of 1743.* Your 
 own favourite Grecian is Euripides, but still you must 
 value — we all must value — Homer. I even, old as I 
 am, could still read him with delight ; and as long as 
 any merely human composition ought to occupy my 
 time, I should have made an exception on behalf of 
 this solitary author. But I am a soldier of Christ : the 
 enemy, the last enemy, cannot be far off; sarcinas 
 colligere is, at my age, the watchword for every faithful 
 sentinel, hourly to keep watch and ward, to wait and to 
 be vigilant. This very day I have taken my farewell 
 glance at Homer, for I must be no more found seeking 
 my pleasure among the works of man ; and, that I may 
 not be tempted to break my resolution, I make over this 
 my last book to you.' The act was in itself a solemn 
 one : something like taking the veil for a nun, a final 
 abjuration of the world's giddy agitations. Me it 
 impressed powerfully in after years. Farewell, my early 
 friend ! holiest of men whom it has been been my lot to 
 
 * De Quincey is hardly accurate here : 1763 was Mr. Clowes's 
 freshman's year. Mr. Clowes's very venerable aspect led De 
 Quincey to exaggerate his age. He lived many years after De 
 Quincey's intercourse with him, and wrote a good deal. 
 
tllS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 29 
 
 meet. Yes, thirty years are past since then [i.e., since 
 1802, when he parted from Mr. Clowes], and I have yet 
 seen few men approaching to this venerable clergyman 
 in paternal benignity — none certainly in childlike purity, 
 apostolic holiness, or in perfect alienation of heart from 
 the spirit of this fleshly world." 
 
 X. 
 
 By this time De Quincey's mother, in gratification of 
 a fancy she had for new houses and for altering and 
 improving them, had removed from Bath, and taken up 
 her abode at the Priory, Chester — a quaint and pretty 
 little house, as De Quincey has described it — " a gem in , 
 the field of the picturesque." On his mother's visits to 
 Manchester, he poured many a tale of his woes into her 
 ears, and wrote long letters urging his reasons why he 
 should be removed from Manchester — his health at last 
 being the main point dwelt on. Neither his mother nor 
 his guardians would listen to his requests ; his mother 
 arguing with him in this style — very good, it may be, 
 from the prudential common-sense point of view, but not 
 likely to weigh, as it was meant to do, with a lad like 
 De Quincey in ill-health, and wholly out of sympathy 
 with his surroundings : — 
 
 " I must here repeat what I believe is true, that you 
 cannot be admitted to the University till you are eighteen 
 (that, however, may easily be ascertained) ; you may 
 enter your name on the books when you are sixteen, and 
 there is some advantage in doing so. This I am pretty 
 sure Charles Cowper did ; and though, like you, he 
 wished to have gone at an earlier age, he did not, 
 because, as I believe, he could not. Supposing this to 
 be the case, is it possible you can wish to loiter away 
 
30 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 two years at home? Surely Mr. Lawson's school may 
 afford you a better opportunity for study than you could 
 have in any other family ! I would urge you to consider 
 that the language you use when you say ' I must ' or ' I 
 will ' is absolute disobedience to your father's last and 
 most solemn act, which appoints you to submit to the 
 direction of your guardians, to Mr, Hall and myself in 
 particular, in what regards your education. I cannot 
 think you believe a total revolt from our rule will make 
 you in any sense great if you have not the constituents 
 of greatness in you, or that waiting the common course 
 of time and expediency will at all hinder the maturity 
 of your powers if you have them. What to say to you 
 on the subject of pecuniary advantages I scarcely know, 
 since you are so unhappy as to think £ioo a year added 
 to your own fortune despicable, and that the honourable 
 competition with your equals for the reward of literary 
 superiority is a degradation. Were I to fix upon the 
 most independent mode of obtaining such a sum, I am 
 sure I should be very apt to name those very academic 
 prizes ; so much do you and I differ." 
 
 It is evident enough, however, that De Quincey's 
 determination to leave the Manchester Grammar School 
 was not due to any lack of appeals to his vanity. Even 
 Mr. Lawson, who seldom gave praise, paid him compli- 
 ments. On that memorable celebration of the Christmas 
 breaking-up, much honour was done to him for his part 
 in the proceedings — the recitation of a Latin poem on the 
 recent conquest of Malta — Melite Britannia subacta. 
 Lady Carbery smiled upon him, and brought in her 
 train every person of rank and influence she could pre- 
 vail upon to go. Here is a rather more detailed account 
 than he gave in the "Autobiographic Sketches " : — 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 3 1 
 
 "Lady Carbery, ever intent upon doing me honour, 
 had come down with all the splendour of equipage that 
 she could muster, and surrounded by all the friends — 
 old friends or new friends — that she could influence. 
 Whoever it was on that day that failed to be happy, the 
 headmaster — the Archididascalus — was not the man. 
 To the seventh of the heavens he was elevated by the 
 pomps and vanities of this wicked world which invested 
 and took by storm the ancient school. Three lords at 
 the very least there were, viz., Lord Massey, with his 
 brother and his lovely wife, on my account ; Lord Grey 
 de Wilton as an old alumnus of the school, and Lord 
 Belgrave, his son-in-law. Many others of distinction 
 glorified the hour for him ; and all Millgate came forth 
 to witness his glory." 
 
 Nothing, however, would avail with him. His con- 
 tempt for Mr. Lawson grew as time went on, and he 
 resolved to run away. He wrote to Lady Carbery for a 
 loan of £^. She sent him £10, saying that even if it 
 were never repaid, she should not be ruined by it. He 
 himself thus wrote of his feelings then -.-^ 
 
 " I had but some eighteen months more to serve. Oh, 
 wherefore could I not have been wiser ? Wherefore did 
 I not hear that secret whisper of monitorial wisdom, that 
 even then went sighing over the evil choice which I 
 made ? Wherefore was it that to thee I should so 
 obstinately have been deaf? For my powers of long- 
 suffering were great ; and the burden that oppressed me 
 I could have borne — had I not suffered at that time under 
 the falsest medical advice. There is no misery which 
 cannot be simulated by a deranged liver ; and] for me at 
 that time this curse existed under a double agency, viz., 
 want of exercise in the first place ; and, secondly, medical 
 
32 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 counsel the most extravagantly erring that in this erring 
 world I have ever known." 
 
 He did carry out his resolution in a very character- 
 istic manner ; and, as he himself has told in the most 
 piquant style, he went first to Chester, as he had learned 
 that his uncle, Colonel Penson, home from India, was 
 there, and he wished to see him. His mother was horri- 
 fied ; but his uncle seemed to regard it as not unnatural 
 that a lad should prefer to go wandering about the 
 country to being kept stuffed up in a Manchester school ; 
 and, by the Colonel's influence with his sister, Thomas 
 was allowed to go off for a tour in Wales till some 
 definite arrangements could be made. He did go off, 
 and so long as he kept up any correspondence with his 
 friends, he received a pound per week ; but by-and-by 
 he got too afraid of being pounced on and sent back to 
 Manchester, and chose to be without any communi- 
 cations. 
 
 That he was wandering about Bangor at the time he 
 says he was is proved by the fact that the fourth and 
 only further letter from the Marquis of Sligo that has 
 been preserved, was addressed to him there, though it is 
 clear De Quincey had not told Lord Sligo the whole 
 stoiy about his running away, and the reason he was 
 then there. It is as follows : — 
 
 " Westport House, Nov. 8, 1802. 
 
 "My dear Little FraEND, — I derived great 
 pleasure from the note you so kindly addressed to me 
 from Bangor, which came to my hands yesterday. 
 
 "Altamont .left us about fourteen days ago. I am 
 almost surprised that you did not meet him, as he went 
 to Holyhead and through North Wales. Whenever 
 your business or your idleness allows of it, I shall be 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 3j 
 
 happy to have a line from you, and shall always feel a 
 sincere interest in all which concerns you. When you 
 come to Bangor next, I hope you will recollect how 
 short a distance it is from hence. I should much like you 
 to see all the great works of improvement in which I have 
 been engaged and generally got through successfully. 
 Our great misfortune in these parts for some years to 
 come will be our entire dependence on peace for the 
 comfortable possession of what we have. I never hear 
 of anything like another revolution in France, without 
 trembling for the effect it, may have upon us here ; for 
 our rebellions and the French invasion have left bad 
 effects, which it will take many years wholly to wipe 
 out. Adieu, my dear little friend, 
 
 " Believe me, very truly and affectionately, yours, 
 
 "Sligo." 
 
 When De Quincey cut himself off wholly from his 
 family, he wandered about on the Welsh hills, sleeping 
 in the open air, and finding at the last, when his money 
 was low, a very precarious diet in the wild-berries ; he 
 even resorted to the expedient of trying to sleep under 
 a kind of umbrella tent, but in wind he found it 
 unmanageable and abandoned it, and sometimes for days 
 he had a home with the simple peasants in return for 
 little services he could render. In one family he 
 remained for some days — ^wrote letters on business for 
 the men and wrote love-letters for the girls ; and he 
 declares they would have kept him there as long as he 
 chose to stay, but when the father, who had been absent, 
 came home, he looked at the matter in another light, and 
 De Quincey left. 
 
 Like to like. In the course of his wanderings, he met 
 with one or two who could aid him towards what he 
 sought. One of these was a Mr. de Haren, who told him 
 
 D 
 
34 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 about the wealth of German literature and lent him one 
 of Haman's books, so that it was in the most unlikely of 
 places that he got his first impulse to the study of 
 German literature. 
 
 But at length matters got so bad with him that he felt 
 he must make a change, and rather than deliver himself 
 up to his guardians, he found a chance of going to 
 London, of which he duly took advantage. 
 
 XI. 
 
 His sufferings during what he calls his " London 
 novitiate," form the subject of one of the most startling 
 chapters in the "Opium Confessions." He found 
 sleeping accommodation in the office of one Brown or 
 Brunell, a shady attorney, in one of the houses at the 
 top of Greek Street, Soho. He had applied to a man 
 named Dell, a Jew, for a loan of money on his 
 expectations, producing to him, among other things, in 
 proof of his identity, the bundle of letters from Lord 
 Sligo and Lord Altamont, some of which very letters we 
 have already presented to the reader. Brunell was the 
 legal agent through whom this Dell did his business, or 
 a part of his business. De Quincey gives a very 
 powerful picture of the kind of life lived by such 
 professional men (who, as he says, have laid down their 
 consciences as rich folk sometimes do their carriages, 
 finding them too expensive or inconvenient). Brunell, 
 however, was fond of literature and liked to converse with 
 the young student who had thus strangely come in his 
 way, and ;he was willing that De Quincey should have 
 house-room, that is, live and sleep in the large half-empty 
 house where he could (Brunell sleeping somewhere else). 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 3S 
 
 and he would often give the lad a share of his breakfast 
 for the luxury of a talk about authors and books. 
 
 De Quincey at a time when his statements could easily 
 have been checked by references to persons still living, 
 made no secret about the house or the man, as is proved 
 by his remark to Mr. Woodhouse^ who writes : 
 
 "The house in which the opium eater lived, as 
 mentioned in his 'Confessions,' rent freehand which is 
 in a street leading out of Oxford Street, is in Greek 
 Street, partly in the Square on the right hand as you 
 go down from Oxford Street. The master had other 
 offices elsewhere, at which he carried on his game. He 
 went by several names." [Garnett, p. 208.] 
 
 Strangely mingled are the threads of good and bad in 
 human nature. Brunell in his own way meant to be kind, 
 and was kind to the runaway schoolboy. He did what 
 he could for him in various Ways, though the loan of 
 money was long in coming. 
 
 De Quincey, however, had a companion in the large 
 half-empty house. A little girl, of whom he says that he 
 never knew whether she were an illegitimate child of 
 Brunell's or what. 
 
 " The only other nightly inhabitant of the large house," 
 he writes, "was a little girl, a poor, forlorn child, 
 apparently ten years old, hunger-bitten and wretched. 
 Great was the joy the poor creature expressed when 
 she found that I was to be her companion through the 
 hours of darkness. From the want of furniture in the 
 large house, the noise of the rats made a prodigious 
 echoing on the spacious staircase and hall, and arriid 
 many real bodily ills, the forsaken child had suffered 
 much from the self-created one of ghosts." 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Some critics think that Dickens must have had in his 
 eye this picture when he drew the Little Marchioness. 
 
 They did the best they could to be comfortable ; but 
 the exposure here and the effects of the exposures in 
 Wales had their own effect ; so that De Quincey tells us 
 he now suffered much from a gnawing pain at the bottom 
 of the stomach which made sound sleep impossible — 
 all that he got being, so he says, a kind of dog-sleep. 
 
 Naturally, he was often about the streets, and on his 
 own principle of holding it no contamination to talk with 
 any creature in human form, he came to be on speaking 
 terms with some of the women who " walk the streets." 
 With one in particular he formed, as he says, a friend- 
 ship, and often talked with her — they were companions 
 in misery, that was all. She had suffered great wrongs, 
 and he was fain to try and aid her, in as far as he could, 
 to get some justice from those who had wronged her. 
 One night the two were sitting on a door-step when, 
 owing to his lack of proper food and attention, he fell 
 forward suddenly in a faint. She quickly caught and 
 supported him, and having put him in as comfortable a 
 position as she could, ran off and spent her last sixpence 
 in procuring wine and spices which revived him — ^but for 
 that, his own idea was that he must have died. 
 
 Just after this, he found an opportunity to go down to 
 Eton to try to get from friends there some aid to raise 
 money, and he had arranged to meet this benefactress 
 again on his return on a certain evening, at a certain 
 place. He never did meet her again, though he tells that 
 for a long time he never ceased to hope and anxiously 
 to search for her ; and his account of these things and " 
 his apostrophes to Ann of Oxford Street, form some of 
 the most touching passages in the " Confessions." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 3/ 
 
 XII. 
 
 Gradually, the way opened, through the offices of a 
 gentleman — a friend of the family — ^whom he had 
 accidentally met in London, to a reconciliation with, and 
 a restoration to, his friends. But for a time it was 
 deemed advisable that he should reside with a family 
 known to his mother — that of Mrs. Best, at Everton, 
 Liverpool, till at all events his guardians had come to 
 some agreement with him respecting his future. While 
 there he received the following letter from the Rev. 
 Samuel Hall, his guardian, which will further throw 
 light on Mr. Hall's character, and suggest the incom- 
 patibility that was certain to arise between him and a 
 young man like De Quincey. 
 
 " Manchester, June 7, 1803. 
 
 "Sir, — ^As you have thought proper to revolt from 
 your duty on a point of the utmost importance to your 
 present interest and future welfare — as you have hitherto 
 persisted in rejecting the wishes of your guardians, who 
 could be governed by no motives but those of promoting 
 your real benefit, you cannot be surprised to hear that 
 they have no new proposition to make. But, notwith- 
 standing all that has passed, if you have any plans in 
 agitation that seem entitled to notice, they are willing to 
 pay them every degree of consideration. 
 
 " They trust that by this time you are convinced that 
 it was (to speak the least of it) a rash step for a young 
 man of seventeen to throw himself out of the protection 
 of his friends and relations into the wide world, and to 
 have nothing to trust to but the charity or compassion of 
 strangers ; and they still cherish the hope that you will 
 
3'8 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 renounce your errors, and endeavour to remove the 
 impression of former misconduct by correct and proper 
 behaviour for the future. 
 
 " I am, sir, 
 
 " Your very humble servant, 
 "Samuel Hall." 
 
 A very good letter for a commonplace man to write 
 to an ordinary commonplace boy, caught in a fault for 
 which dicipline was the proper punishment, but hardly, 
 it will Surely be admitted, the kind of missive to have the 
 effect of conciliation on the mind of a youth like 
 De Quincey. 
 
 By-and-by, however, mainly through the influence of 
 his friend Mr. Kelsall, and of his uncle, Colonel Penson, 
 De Quincey wrote a letter, agreeing to certain points^a 
 letter so characteristic that we must quote the following 
 passages. 
 
 " Everton, y««^ 23, 1805. 
 "Sir, — I learned from Mr. Kelsall, when he was last 
 in Liverpool, that, on my pledging myself to enter into 
 a profession, my mother's scheme of sending me to 
 college would receive your sanction ; I mentioned this, a 
 few days ago, in a letter to my mother, and yesterday I 
 received an answer in which she expresses hopes of the 
 same sort. I write, therefore, sir, to say that, if any 
 assurance on this point — short of an absolute promise — 
 can have weight with you, I am ready to give it. I 
 object to an absolute promise, not out of any desire to 
 secure a decent method of evading my engagements, but 
 because there appears something more than rashness 
 in binding ourselves, by a solemn obligation, to perform 
 what the uncertainty of human events hourly tells us we 
 may never have the power of performing ; and, assuredly, 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 39 
 
 under whatever circumstances it could be required of me, 
 I shall consider an assurance as binding as a promise. . . 
 " Sorry as I am, however, to lie under the imputation 
 of having expressed sentiments towards Mr. Hall so 
 contrary to those which I really feel, I should be still 
 more sorry if I thought it possible that, in thus dis- 
 avowing such sentiments, I could be suspected of acting 
 a part for the purpose of compassing a favourite point. 
 I may, therefore, observe that, with me, going to college 
 is not a favourite point ; at least, I mean, it is not an 
 object which I have looked to with any ardour of desire. 
 In whatever I feel of inclination for academic pursuits, I 
 am influenced entirely by my mother's wish that I 
 should quit a mode of life which she considers useless 
 and inactive ; and in thus attempting to obtain your 
 approbation and furtherance of such a plan, I am 
 actuated by the joint wishes of my mother and myself>. 
 that, on entering into a new scene of life (at the best,, 
 perilous and expensive), I should do it not with a 
 mere negative forbearance of opposition on the part of 
 my guardians, but with that positive consent and union, 
 of all parties which give stability to any scheme — spirit 
 and animation to any hopes. 
 
 " I am, sir, with high respect, 
 " Your humble servant, 
 
 "Thomas de Quincev. 
 
 "The Revd, Samuel Hall, 
 " near St. Peter's Church, 
 " Oxford Street, 
 " Manchester." 
 
 Very soon after this he proceeded to the Priory, and 
 of his stay there, and of the conversations and discussions 
 he had with his uncle, he has given a very lively and 
 humorous account. Before long, arrangements were 
 
4? THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 made, whereby he should enter Worcester College, 
 Oxford. 
 
 During his stay at the Priory, he wrote to Wordsworth 
 a letter in which he tells of the deep impression pro- 
 duced on his mind by the " Lyrical Ballads," and the 
 poems that had followed, a letter to which Wordsworth 
 replied at great length, and in the course of his reply he 
 said — 
 
 " It would be out of nature were I not to have kind 
 feelings towards one who expresses sentiments of such 
 profound esteem and admiration for my writings as you 
 have done. You can have no doubt but that these 
 sentiments, however conveyed to me, must have been 
 acceptable ; and I assure you that they are still more 
 welcome coming from yourself, and in the terms they do. 
 A sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time 
 and circumstance ; it will spring up and thrive like a 
 wild flower when these favour ; and, if they do not, it is 
 in vain to look for it. ... . I am going with my friend 
 Coleridge and my sister upon a tour in Scotland for six 
 weeks or two months. This will prevent my hearing from 
 you as soon as I could wish, as most likely we shall set off 
 in a few days. If, however, you write immediately, I may 
 have the pleasure of receiving your letter before our de- 
 parture ; if we are gone, I shall order it to be sent after me. 
 I need not add that it will give me great pleasure to see you 
 at Grasmere if you should ever come this way. . . You 
 speak of yourself as being very young, and therefore may 
 have many engagements of great importance with 
 respect to your worldly concerns and future happiness in 
 life. Do not neglect these on my account ; but, if 
 consistent with these and your other duties, you could 
 find time to visit this country, which is no very great 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 41 
 
 distance from your present residence, I should, I repeat 
 be very happy to see you." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 His life at Oxford was very solitary and unlike that 
 pursued by most students. Professor Wilson was then 
 one of the most brilliant personages there, carrying all 
 before him in certain ways ; and it is significant of De 
 Quincey's' hermit-like mode of life that he never so much 
 as heard of Wilson and his achievements, not to speak of 
 knowing him. Edward Grinfield was at Lincoln College, 
 and sometimes saw his old schoolfellow ; but failed to 
 improve the friendship, anxious as he was to do so. De 
 Quincey was intent on his own peculiar interests, read 
 much in out-of-the-way books ; took up the study of 
 German and Hebrew, in which he found aid from a Jew 
 named Schwartzburg ; and suffered so much from neu- 
 ralgia and pain in his stomach, that he was frequently 
 prostrated. In spite of all this, he found pleasure, relief, 
 the greatest delight even in the study of the works that 
 had by this time proceeded from Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge. He regarded them, while yet in many 
 quarters they were looked on with contempt, as the 
 greatest poets of recent times, and was never tired of 
 commending them to those whom he knew or corre- 
 sponded with, as letters to his sisters still existing would 
 suffice to prove. If he attained any notice for a while, it 
 was more for oddity than for anything else, and a story 
 is told of his coming into the dining-hall without a 
 waistcoat — ^by a thoughtless movement, discovering the 
 nakedness of the land, and suffering a mild reprimand 
 from the master for his neglect in this important matter. 
 
 One of the chief pleasures of his life then was the 
 
42 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 receipt of letters from Wordsworth. The next is dated 
 " Grasmere, March 6, 1804," and had been addressed to 
 St. John's Priory.lChester, forwarded to Mrs. de Quincey, 
 who had by this time gone to Bath, and by her sent on to 
 Worcester College, Oxford. In it Wordsworth says : — 
 
 " Your last letter gave me great pleasure: it was indeed 
 a very amiable one, and I was highly gratified in the 
 thought of being so endeared to you by the moral effect 
 of my writings. I am afraid you may have been hurt at 
 not hearing from me, and may have construed my silence 
 into neglect or inattentioii. I assure you this has by no 
 means been the case. I have thought of you very 
 often, and with great interest, and wished to hear from 
 you again. ... 
 
 " « We had a most delightful tour of six weeks in Scot- 
 land : our pleasure, however, was not a little dashed by 
 the necessity under which Mr. Coleridge found himself of 
 leaving us, at the end of something more than a fortnight, 
 from ill-health and a dread of the rains (his complaint 
 being rheumatic), when, after a long drought rain 
 appeared to be setting in. The weather, however, on the 
 whole was excellent, and we were amply repaid for our 
 pains. As, most likely, you will make the tour of the 
 Highlands some time or other, do not fail to let me 
 know beforehand, and I will tell you what we thought 
 most worth seeing, as far as we went. Our tour, though 
 most delightful, was very imperfect, being nothing more 
 than what is called the short tour, with considerable 
 deviations. . . . 
 
 "By this time I conclude you have taken up your 
 abode at Oxford. I am anxious to hear how far you 
 are satisfied, and, above all, that you have not been 
 seduced into unworthy pleasures and pursuits. The 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 43 
 
 State of both the universities is, I believe, much better than 
 formerly, in respect to the morals and manners of the 
 students. I know that Cambridge is greatly improved 
 since I was there, which is about thirteen years ago. I 
 need not say to you that there is no true dignity but in 
 virtue and temperance, and, let me add, chastity ; and 
 that the best safeguard of all these is the cultivation of 
 pure pleasures, namely, those of the intellect and affec- 
 tions. I have much anxiety on this head, from a sincere 
 concern for your welfare and the melancholy retrospect 
 which forces itself upon one, of the number of men of 
 genius who have fallen beneath the evils that lurk 
 there. . . . Love nature and books : seek these, and 
 you will be happy ; for virtuous friendship and love and 
 knowledge of mankind must inevitably accompany these, 
 all things ripening in their due season. 
 
 " I am now writing a poem on my own earlier life : I 
 have just finished that part of it in which I speak of my 
 residence at the University ; it would give me great 
 pleasure to send this work to you at this time, as I am 
 sure, from the interest you have taken in the L. B., that 
 it would please you, and might also be of service to you. 
 This poem will not be published these many years, and 
 never during my lifetime, till I have finished a larger 
 and more important . work to which it is tributary ['The 
 Excursion']. Of this larger work I have written one 
 book and several scattered fragments : it is a moral and 
 philosophical poem : the subject whatever I find most 
 interesting in Nature, Man and Society, and most 
 adapted to poetic illustration. To this work I mean to 
 devote the" prime of my life, and the chief force of my 
 mind. I have also arranged the plan of a narrative 
 poem ; arid if I live to finish these three principal works, 
 I shall be content. They are all to be in blank verse. 
 
44 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 I have taken the liberty of saying this much of my 
 concerns to you, not doubting that it would interest 
 you." 
 
 It was during his second year at Oxford that De 
 Quincey first tasted opium when on a visit to London ; 
 and his celebration of that incident and " the beatific 
 chemist," who supplied to him the mystic nepenthe near 
 the Pantheon, readers of the " Confessions " are not likely 
 to forget. This introduction to opium is of the greatest 
 importance, as the habit grew upon him and came so 
 entirely to colour the strain of his life and genius. 
 According to his own account it wonderfully quickened 
 mental activity during its first stages, allaying pain, and 
 imparting a clearness and calm penetration to the 
 intellect At all events, it did not operate in any way 
 against his success at Oxford, for when he went up to 
 examination for his degree, he astonished the examiners, 
 who declared that in him they had the cleverest man 
 they had ever come in contact with ; and the verdict of 
 Dr. Goodenough, the Master of Worcester, is quite in 
 accord with theirs. But his shyness was too great to 
 permit him to undergo the viva voce, (at which, they 
 had said, if he only did as well as he had done at the 
 written, he would carry everything before him) ; and he 
 disappeared from Oxford to the regret of all, without 
 having taken his degree. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 We next find him in London, making some attempt 
 to study law, and keep his terms with a view of being 
 called to the bar; but his real concern was in such 
 associations as those he now formed with Charles Lamb 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 45 
 
 and Coleridge. He describes visits to both of these 
 distinguished writers : with Lamb, at the India House, 
 and at his home, and with Coleridge, who was then 
 located with Mr. Stewart, at the " Courier " office in the 
 Strand. It was at this time, too, that his brother Richard 
 (" Pink"), returned from his first odyssey of wanderings 
 and adventures, spent some time in London ; and the 
 younger brother was as much taken with Lamb as was 
 the elder ; for in his after letters, " Pink " often referred 
 to Lamb, and how he refused to be humbugged by a 
 certain picture-dealer. Coleridge he had first met when 
 at Mr. Poole's in Nether-Stowey, and the acquaintance 
 was now renewed and passed into close friendship. De 
 Quincey by-and-by, through Mr. Joseph Cottle in Bristol, 
 presenting Coleridge with /3CX), to enable him, with 
 an undisturbed mind, to pursue his literary and philo- 
 sophical work. Coleridge was now busy preparing 
 lectures ; and Mrs. Coleridge was about to go on a 
 visit to Southey and the Wordsworths. As Coleridge, 
 because of his engagements, could not accompany her, 
 De Quincey agreed to do so. This was his first intro- 
 duction to the Wordsworths personally. He was so 
 attracted by their society and by the district, that he 
 resolved to settle there. By-and-by he took a lease of 
 Dove Cottage, in which Wordsworth had for some time 
 lived, before entering Rydal Mount ; Miss Wordsworth 
 (Dorothy) taking the greatest interest in the furnishing 
 and fitting up of his cottage, while De Quincey was in 
 London or elsewhere. Between her and De Quincey 
 there sprang up the closest friendship, which has record 
 in the most delightful letters, many of which" are to be 
 found in the first volume of the " De Quincey Memo- 
 rials." De Quincey, too, became the great friend of 
 the Wordsworth children, who used to long for him. 
 
46 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 and speak of him as "their greatest friend," — with Tom 
 and with little Johnny, who " never forgets him in his 
 prayers," and with little Catherine, whose beauty and 
 sweetness caused him to regard her as " the impersona- 
 tion of the dawn and of infancy," and whose sudden 
 death worked something like a revolution in his mind 
 and fancy, so affected was he by it, Here are some 
 snatches from Dorothy's letters, which will justify these 
 statements : — , \ 
 
 "Johnny improves daily ; he is certainly the sweetest 
 creature in the world ; he is so very tender-hearted and 
 affectionate. He longs for your return, and I think he 
 will profit more than ever by your conversation, though 
 great was the improvement that you wrought in him ; 
 indeed, he owes more to you than to any one else for the 
 softening of his manners. He is not famous for making 
 extraordinary speeches, but I must tell you one pretty 
 thing he said the other day. His mother and he were 
 walking in the lane, and, looking at ihe daisies on the 
 turf, when he said, ' Mother, the poor little daisies are 
 forsaken now.' ' Forsaken, Johnny, what foi- ? * 'Well, 
 because there are so many other pretty flowers ! ' . . . 
 Little Tom has been poorly and looks ill ; he often lisps 
 out your name, and will rejoice with the happiest at your 
 return. I must remind you of your promise you made 
 to Johnny to bring him a new hat , I bought one for 
 Tom at Kendal, but, remembering that you would bring 
 Johnny one, I did not buy one for him. Let it be a 
 black one if you have not already bought one of another 
 colour." ... 
 
 When De Quincey at length returned to Grasmere, 
 one of the most important incidents that occurred to him 
 there was his introduction to Wilson, which he owed to 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 47 
 
 Wordsworth, and later his making the friendship of 
 Charles Lloyd. In Wilson he found much of an 
 answering spirit on some sides— in love of poetry and 
 delight in nature, and fondness for long tramps on the 
 mountains, while even in some forms of sport they were 
 congenial; for De Quincey had, after all, a bit of the 
 John Bull in him. Very eloquent are his descriptions of 
 many points in their association, and the complete 
 freedom of friendship that before long grew up between 
 them with talk of many plans of excursions and travels, 
 and something almost like a common purse by-and-by. 
 We can see them with the mind's eye as they go on their 
 rambles in that lovely region— ^Wilson tall, splendidly 
 formed, almost leonine of look, with long fair locks 
 waving in the breeze ; De Quincey very short of stature \ 
 and slight, yet able to undergo a great deal of fatigue, ^ 
 and not at all put to disadvantage in the walking way 
 by Wilson's great strides. There they go, an odd- 
 looking pair, as a stranger would have said, discussing 
 the last poem of Wordsworth which he had just read to 
 them before they left his house, or deep in some knotty 
 problem of Platonic metaphysics, or keen to disentangle 
 some doubtful collocation in their last talk with Coleridge, 
 who, by this time, was at the lakes with Southey, busy 
 on 'The Friend.' It is funny, but one of Wilson's 
 playful names for De Quincey was Plato. 
 
 The plans for excursions they had so liberally formed 
 were knocked on the head by the sudden loss of a great 
 part of Wilson's fortune through the mismanagement, or 
 worse, of a relative who was also his agent, making it 
 necessary for Wilson to leave Elleray and betake himself 
 seriously to the study of law in Edinburgh, where 
 before long De Quincey on a visit will rejoin him. 
 
 But in poor Charles Lloyd, De Quincey found the 
 
48 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 most of an answering spirit on the higher ground of 
 sentiment, imagination, phantasy. Very fine is his ac- 
 count of his contact and conversation with Charles Lloyd 
 — sympathetic, rarely comprehensive — and touching in 
 the highest degree is his story of poor Lloyd in his 
 alienation of mind ; how once, when he escaped from 
 those in charge of him, he made his way direct to 
 De Quincey's cottage, much to his friends' concern and 
 perplexity. There is much of the idyllic in De Quincey's 
 life among his friends and daily companions at this time. 
 Wordsworth, with his profound meditation, Dorothy, 
 with her suggestive words, in which quaint originality 
 and fine sentiment and love of nature went hand in hand ; 
 and the children, whose attractions for De Quincey were 
 even more strong and enduring than those of their 
 father's philosophy. 
 
 When he was alone, has he not told of the delight he 
 found in his nocturnal rambles through the silent valleys 
 of Cumberland and Westmoreland ; and how, in the lights 
 in the distant windows, he could read as by mystic 
 hieroglyphics, the passage of the hours. But no man 
 need trust to the continuance of such idyllic days, or, if 
 he does trust, he is sure to be disappointed. 
 
 XV. 
 
 A visit paid to Wilson in Edinburgh brought him 
 among a brilliant band of new friends and associates. 
 Now, he met Lockhart, Sir William Hamilton, and his 
 brother, Captain Thomas Hamilton (" Cyril Thornton ") ; 
 Sir William Allan, President of the Royal Scottish 
 Academy ; R. P. Gillies, Advocate, the clever raconteur, 
 whose position in Edinburgh was so unique, and whose 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 49 
 
 talents were so varied', and whose later life, alas ! was so 
 shadowed and forlorn. De Quincey has suggestively 
 described it. 
 
 Here he found himself in his element, and has made 
 due record of the fact in many of his essays and in the 
 *' Autobiographic Sketches." But, by this time, the 
 opium had begun to dash its delights with penalties ; 
 and in this circle it is clear that to keep himself up to the j 
 mark he was tempted to indulge too far. All tell of his 
 brilliant talk, of his finely turned sentences as perfectly 
 framed as though they had been written and revised, of 
 his wealth of out-of-the-way learning, and his aptness at 
 capping an anecdote or a quotation. " The talk might 
 be of beeves," wrote Gillies, " but De Quincey could take 
 his .share in it, and from that could cunningly lead the 
 conversation round to Chaucer or Homer, or, it might be, 
 to Plato or Ptolemy, or to the Greek Dramatists, or even 
 to the Talmud or some HebreVsr Rabbi." After a 
 lengthened stay, that was much enjoyed, De Quincey 
 returned to Grasmere with memories that often made 
 him revert to Edinburgh. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 De Quincey's ready sympathies led him always to 
 find friends outside literary and philosophic circles. He 
 was, in this respect, no recluse, nor was he one to stand 
 aloof any way or to pique himself on his education or 
 his birth. Among many of the farmers and yeomen of 
 the Grasmere region, he found friends and associates 
 too. He was interested in these strong characters, their 
 fine natural intelligence and their shrewd ways'. He 
 appreciated the "salt " in their speech — was fond to hear 
 
 E 
 
so THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 them use words almost peculiar to them — words that 
 told of the Danish element that had made its own mark 
 there. With one of these, a Mr. Simpson, he became 
 very intimate and often visited at his house, where he 
 was warmly welcomed , because of his good manners 
 and unaffected ways ; the light he could throw on many 
 things to a man, in whom the hard, rough work of 
 yeoman life in Westmoreland had not quenched the 
 more liberal curiosities. And, by-and-by, the daughter, 
 Margaret, a young girl (of whom one who saw much 
 of her declares that she was both beautiful and hand- 
 some), was much attracted by the visitor, as before long 
 he by her, and gradually affection sprang up between 
 them. One new inducement to overcome the opium 
 enemy which had gained too great a hold arose from 
 De Quincey having become engaged to Margaret 
 Simpson, and in this by dint of resolution he so 
 far succeeded as to justify their being united in 
 marriage. 
 
 Then he had to try what he could do in a practical way 
 to improve his fortune, which, never large, had been much 
 eaten into by gifts to friends, by loans, and in many 
 other ways. He began to write in many places — he had 
 already contributed to Blackwood's Magazine ; he wrote 
 for, the Westmoreland Gazette, and, by-and-by for the 
 space of a year was its editor — a post which we can 
 scarcely conceive as congenial to him, though he was 
 certdnly very energetic and active in it. Children had 
 been born to the pair, and we can realise how a man 
 like De Quincey would realise painfully his incapacity 
 to cope with the demands thus made upon him. The 
 sense of this incapacity led him to try to draw strength 
 from the opium, and of course the opium painfully 
 avenged itself on him in the end, with such complete 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. SI 
 
 paralysis of productive function as made him wretched. 
 He has described all this in his " Confessions," — ^the depth 
 of despair and helplessness to which he sank, "as 
 though twenty Atlantics were heaped upon him," till at 
 last he grew afraid to sleep and shrunk from it as from the 
 most dreadful of tortures. Awful wretched dreams it 
 brought — dreams that transformed all about him into 
 crawling horrors and monstrosities unspeakable. 
 
 Amid all this his wife was a ministering angel — never 
 complaining ; but with the utmost tact and tenderness, 
 applying herself unweariedly to his relief and comfort. 
 He has celebrated her devotion in the " Confessions." 
 "Thou wast my Electra ! " he exclaims, " and neither in 
 nobility of mind, nor in long-suffering affection, wouldst 
 permit that a Grecian sister should excel an English 
 wife." And not improbably he had her in his thoughts 
 too when he penned the beautiful concluding passage in 
 that essay — " The Loveliest Sight for Woman's Eyes," 
 which is given in the first volume of the " Posthumous 
 Writings":— 
 
 " And pertaining also to this part of the subject, I 
 will tell you a result of my own observations of no light 
 importance to women. It is this : Nineteen times out 
 of twenty I have remarked that the true paradise of a 
 female life in all ranks, not too elevated for constant 
 intercourse with the children, is by no means the years 
 of courtship, nor the earliest period of marriage, but that 
 sequestered chamber of her experience, in which a 
 mother is left alone through the day, with servants 
 perhaps in a distant part of the house, and (God be 
 thanked !) chiefly where there are no servants at all, she 
 is attended by one sole companion, her little first-born 
 angel, as yet clinging to her robe, imperfectly able to 
 walk, still more imperfectly in its prattling and innocent 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 thoughts, clinging to her, haunting her wherever she 
 goes as her shadow; catching from her eye the total 
 inspiration of its little palpitating heart, and sending to 
 hers a thrill of secret pleasure so often as its little 
 fingers fasten on her own. Left alone from morning 
 to night with this one companion, or even with three, 
 still wearing the graces of infancy ; buds of various 
 stages upon the self-same tree, a woman, if she has the 
 great blessing of approaching such a luxury of paradise, 
 is moving — too often not aware that she is moving — 
 through the divinest section of her life. As evening 
 sets in, the husband through all walks of life, from the 
 highest professional down to that of common labour, 
 returns home to vary her mode of conversation by such 
 thoughts and interests, as are more consonant with his 
 more extensive capacities of intellect. But by that 
 time her child — or her children — will be reposing on the 
 little couch, and in the morning duly as the sun ascends 
 in power, she sees before her a long, long day of perfect 
 pleasure in his society which evening will bring to her, 
 but which is interwoven with every fibre of her sensi- 
 bilities. This condition of noiseless, quiet love is that, 
 above all, which God blesses and smiles upon." 
 
 Gradually, after many an effort, many a trial, he 
 emerged from the worst form of the tyranny, and by- 
 and-by was able to go to London to try what fortune 
 might be in store for him there. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Through Lamb and Sir T. Noon Talfourd, he was 
 introduced to Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, the publishers 
 of the London Magazine, to which he began to con- 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. JJ 
 
 tribute. It was the custom of this firm to have 
 periodical meetings of their contributors, when they 
 dined together and interchanged views. At these meet-' 
 ings, as was natural, De Quincey's experiences due to 
 opium were often spoken of. This at length led to his 
 being asked to write an account.of these. The result was 
 the famous " Confessions " which produced an immediate 
 effect, and placed De Quincey in the front rank of literary 
 men then living. He had found it inadvisable and impos- 
 isible to take his wife and children to London with him ; 
 and in his ^notes of life at that period he tells how often 
 .as he walked about, he looked to the north and wished 
 for the wings of a dove that he might fly there and be 
 at rest. He occupied lodgings at one place or another 
 throughout the entire period of this visit, with a short 
 exception. For some time he lodged in rooms above 
 the shop of Mr. H. G. Bohn, in York Street, Covent 
 Garden, and there, most probably, the " Confessions " 
 were written. Thomas Hood was then a young man, 
 just beginning his literary career, and was a sort of sub- 
 editor, under Mr. Taylor, of the London Magazine. He 
 frequently had occasion to call on De Quincey, for whom 
 he came to entertain feelings of real affection, as De 
 Quincey did for him ; and he thus, in his own quaint 
 playful way, at one place makes record of his visits, 
 
 "I have found him at home, quite at home in the 
 midst of a German Ocean of literature, in a storm, 
 flooding all the floor, the table and the chairs — billows of 
 books, tossing, tumbling, surging open — on such 
 occasions I have willingly listened by the hour, whilst 
 the philosopher, standing with his eyes fixed on one 
 side of the room, seemed to be less speaking than reading 
 from 'a handwriting on. the wall.' Now and then he 
 
54 THOMAS DE QUINCEY i 
 
 would diverge for a Scotch mile or two, to the right or 
 left, till I was tempted to inquire with Peregrine, in 
 ' John Bull ' (Coleman's not Hook's), ' Do you never 
 deviate ? ' — but he always came safely back to the point 
 where he had left, not lost the scent, and thence hunted 
 his topic to the end . . . Marry, I have one of his 
 " Confessions " with his own name and mark to it : an 
 apology for a certain stain on the MS., the said stain 
 being a large purplish ring. ' Within that circle none 
 durst walk but he ' — in fact, the impression, coloured, of 
 a tumbler of laudanum negus, warm, without sugar." 
 
 It was at these meetings at Taylor and Hessey's that 
 he met Mr. Woodhouse, whose valuable reminiscences of 
 those days Dr. R. Garnett was fortunate enough to 
 publish in his edition on his " Confessions " in the 
 Parchment Library Series — a work which is essential to 
 all students of De Quincey. 
 
 With Charles Knight, too, De Quincey made 
 acquaintance at this time, and between the two sprang 
 up a genuine friendship which was never interrupted. 
 For a short period towards the end of this stay in 
 London, De Quincey lived at Knight's house, and, as 
 Knight says, drew to himself the affection of his wife as 
 well as his own, by his learning, his eloquent conversation* 
 his affability, his eccentricity and his utter simplicity of 
 character. Knight tells of many odd ways and habits — 
 which only drew them the more affectionately to the 
 strange little man. De Quincey contributed several 
 articles to the New Quarterly Magazine and afterwards 
 many letters passed between these two — one most quaint 
 and original letter from De Quincey, inviting Charles 
 Knight to visit him at Grasmere, where, if he chose, " he 
 should bathe in oceans of milk ! " 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 55 
 
 Much as De Quincey loved music and delighted in the 
 opera, he tells us how at this time in London, after 
 taking his ordinary dose of opium in the evening, he 
 would forego the temptations opera-ward, and instead 
 would go into the streets and walk among the working 
 folks engaged in their marketings, and would enter into 
 conversation with them. This, indeed, was a favourite 
 resource, he tells us, on the Saturday nights, and from 
 what he saw there, as later on Glasgow Green and else- 
 where, he learned so much of the struggles of the poor, 
 and of their kindness to each other that he never ceased 
 to think of them with affectionate regard and sympathy, 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 After some time spent in Grasmere, while he made 
 many efforts, more of less successful, to keep open his 
 connections with the literary world, in the year 1828 he 
 went to Edinburgh, with the idea that, if he could find 
 engagements, he would settle there. He did find 
 engagements, as the volumes of Blackwood for the 
 years that followed will bear witness. He rejoined the 
 circle to which he had been welcomed when in 
 Edinburgh before : found Professor Wilson still as full 
 of life, as friendly and hospitable, spent many an 
 evening discussing knotty points of philosophy with 
 Hamilton, and made many new friends, among them 
 Mrs. Crowe, the author of " the Night side of Nature," 
 in whose house in Darnaway Street, he spent many a 
 pleasant evening. By and by, he began to write in 
 Taits Magdzine, contributing to it many chapters of 
 autobiography, and on " Greek literature " among other 
 subjects, and he found in Mr. Tait a liberal editor and a 
 warm friend. 
 
56 THOMAS^DE QUINCEY : 
 
 At this time De Quincey saw a good deal of Carlyle, 
 who, with Mrs. Carlyle, was then living at Comely Bank. 
 It is evident, despite some disparaging and cynical 
 •remarks in the diaries published by Mr. Froude, that 
 both Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle then warmly wished to be 
 ranked among De Quincey's friends, and we know that 
 De Quincey came to entertain the warmest feelings of 
 friendship toward them — more especially towards Mrs. 
 Carlyle, who had shown him much kindness, which he 
 never forgot When shortly afterwards, the Carlyles had 
 gone to Craigenputtock, De Quincey received from them 
 the most affectionate letters — one of which, anxiously 
 urging De Quincey to visit them in their bleak, bare, 
 Dumfriesshire home, is given at length in the Memoir. 
 
 By and by, Mrs. De Quincey came to Edinburgh with 
 the children, and they were established first in a cottage 
 at Duddingstone, and then in other parts. But De 
 Quincey was never the man to lay the proper value upon 
 money, and owing to one circumstance and another — his 
 utter powerlessness to take his affairs firmly in hand and 
 deal with them, and his incompetency in keeping proper 
 business records, together with a generosity that was 
 utterly uncalculating — he found himself at length under 
 the necessity of finding sanctuary from his creditors in 
 Holyrood, so to escape imprisonment for debt. There 
 his wife and family went with him. He found many 
 friends in Holyrood as he did everywhere else — his 
 relations with some of them being celebrated by letters 
 directed to them after he had left Holyrood — to one of 
 them. Miss Jessie Miller, he wrote often, and one or two 
 of his letters to her will be found in the Memoir, a cheap 
 edition of which is published by Mr. John Hogg. 
 
 Escape from Holyrood was impossible during all days 
 except Sundays ; so that in Edinburgh, as Defoe was in 
 
HIS ;FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 57 
 
 Bristol, De Quincey was " the Sunday gentleman " for a 
 while. There was naturally much sending out of MSS. and 
 much sending in of proofs from printing ofi5ces. To this 
 circumstance we owe one of the most delightful 
 descriptions of De Quincey at this time that we have — 
 from the pen of the late Mr. James Bertram, who was in 
 these days a boy in the shop of Mr. Tait. He tells how 
 courteous and sympathetic De Quincey was ; how even 
 towards a mere errand boy, he never failed in the most 
 perfect consideration, and also how the boy came to like 
 to go there and to treasure up his sayings. Mr. Bertram i 
 tells also how inefficient he was in all money- matters, how 
 cheques were rather a trouble to him, and how he would 
 beg the boy when he took them to go to a friend and get 
 them cashed. From others, as well as from Mr. Bertram, 
 we learn that generally he had no notion how matters 
 stood as between himself and Mr. Tait, and, no doubt, it 
 was quite the same in the other cases of those with whom 
 he had relations. 
 
 On one occasion he had gone out on a Sunday to 
 consult his lawyer, who lived in Princes Street, on some 
 point, and, forgetful of the lapse of time, found, on 
 rising to go, that it was too late for him " to leap the 
 boundary" as it was called, that is, to escape the 
 observation of sheriff-officers, who, after a certain hour 
 on Sunday, could or might arrest any debtor found out- 
 side. On this occasion his only chance was to stay 
 perdu where he was, and this visit was prolonged for 
 several weeks — the utmost care being taken to keep him 
 from observation of any but his tried friends. In the 
 house of that solicitor, a young student, a near relative 
 of his, was lodging, and, on his getting at the secret that 
 the famous opium-eater was there, nothing would satisfy 
 him but that he must be introduced ; pledge of secrecy 
 
S8 THOMAS DE QUINCEY: 
 
 on his part having been given. That student enjoyed 
 many fruitful conversations with De Quincey during these 
 weeks, and was able to do many services for him, to 
 relieve the tedium of this queer confinement ; and this 
 student declared, and indeed deliberately wrote, that he 
 then learned more from De Quincey than from all his 
 teachers and books put together. He never spoke of 
 De Quincey but with gratitude and reverence, notwith- 
 standing the peculiar circumstances under which he had 
 made his acquaintance. This was the Rev. Dr. Robertson, 
 of Irvine, whom De Quincey visited, and in whose 
 biography, by the late Rev. Dr. James Brown, of Paisley, 
 will be found the full details of what we here have merely 
 the space to hint at. 
 
 One of the friends, whom he made about this time, 
 was Mr. Hill Burton, the historian. Mr. Hill Burton, in 
 his volume " The Book-hunter," has given a sketch of 
 De Quincey under the thinnest of disguises — " Thomas 
 Papaverius," — and there he tells how utterly without 
 business calculation he was — how once he came to him 
 after dark in great trouble wanting to borrow a trifle of 
 half-a-crown for some immediate need, and, much to 
 Mr. Burton's surprise, wished to leave a £S note as 
 security for the loan ; Mr. Burton remarking that he 
 believed if he had taken it he would never have heard 
 any more of the matter from De Quincey, or that any 
 claim would ever have been made upon him for it. One 
 can easily imagine that it was possible for De Quincey. 
 in such circumstances to fall into less scrupulous hands, 
 as no doubt he did, particularly in two or three cases of 
 lodging-house keepers. Mr. Charles Knight has told 
 of an almost similar simplicity in dealing with money 
 when De Quincey had left his house, quite unnecessarily 
 for fear, as he said, of giving Mrs. Knight too much 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 59 
 
 trouble. Mr. Knight found him in a lodging-house, on the 
 South-side of London, waiting until the day should arrive 
 for a draft to become payable to enable him to go home 
 to Grasmere. Needless to say, Mr. Knight cashed the 
 draft, relieved him, and, after hospitalities at his house, 
 sent him off to Grasmere without more delay. 
 
 Mr. Hill Burton also speaks of it as a peculiar fact 
 that, though De Quincey had a great love of books, he 
 was in no sense a collector of rare and fine books, and 
 would be just as content with a lot of half-loose leaves as 
 with the most sumptuous edition. What he cared for was 
 the matter, which he quickly mastered by his wonderful 
 memory, rather than for the binding and tooling. 
 
 Mrs. De Quincey died in 1837, and was buried in Edin- 
 burgh, and he found himself left with a family of young 
 children — one of the most incapable of men to look after 
 them. Many friends they had in Edinburgh, who 
 endeavoured as far as possible to aid him and them; 
 but things were in the most unsatisfactory condition, 
 when Margaret, his eldest daughter, still a mere girl, 
 took the reins into her own hands; and with some 
 assistance of friends, rented and furnished the little 
 cottage at Lasswade, which up to the end really re- 
 mained his headquarters, though, owing to his engage- 
 ments, he would now and then be called to Glasgow or 
 Edinburgh, and in lodgings in either of these places for 
 a time. 
 
 As one instance of the loose, unjustified, statements 
 made in Handbooks or Histories of English Literature, 
 we may cite one (from a larger number recently noted) 
 in a volume published by a writer from whom we should 
 expect better things— published too in Edinburgh where 
 verification would have been so easy for the writer. 
 He says De Quincey "estabhshed his wife and iaxaily 
 
60 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 in a cottage at Duddingstone or Lasswade, he himself 
 preferring for the most part to live in lodgings in Edin- 
 burgh. Now this is not only inaccurate and misleading, 
 but is calculated to give quite a wrong impression of 
 De Quincey and his habits, erratic though they were. 
 While De Quincey's wife lived, they were mostly to- 
 gether — even as we have seen in sanctuary together. As 
 she died after a few years in Edinburgh, she certainly 
 never was established at Lasswade at all. The estab- 
 lishment at Lasswade, as we have said, was due entirely 
 to the wonderful tact and management of De Quincey's 
 eldest daughter, Margaret, who, on her mother's death, 
 or soon after it, seemed to spring at one step from the 
 girl to the woman. This writer too speaks of 42, Lothian 
 Street, as " obscure lodgings in Edinburgh " ; and, even 
 though Mr. J. R. Findlay's plate had not been attached 
 to the house, notifying it as the place where De Quincey 
 lived during the last years of his life and where he died, 
 it should have been well known, if not familiar, to a 
 resident in the Modern Athens. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 When the proprietors of The Daily Mail, in Glasgow, 
 purchased Taifs Magazine, and transferred it to that 
 city, Mr. Troup became editor, and one of De Quincey's 
 lengthened visits to Glasgow was connected with 
 assistance desired from him in relation to that enter- 
 prise. When frequently in Glasgow in former days he 
 had lived at 74, Renfield Street, his main object in 
 these visits having been to enjoy the society of Professor 
 J. P. Nichol, the distinguished astronomer, and of Pro- 
 fessor Lushington, with one or other of whom he would 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 6l 
 
 sometimes stay for weeks. Among the most cherished 
 recollections of the late lamented Professor John Nichol, 
 as he himself told me, were the walks, when he was a 
 boy, from his father's house to the Observatory with De 
 Quincey whose talk was such then as to cause the lad 
 to regard him as one of the wisest of sages and the most 
 eloquent of talkers. Now, happily, these attractions 
 still remained, so that De Quincey when he accepted 
 the invitation of The Daily Mail people and of 
 Mr. Troup, (as told so well by Mr. Colin Rae-Brown) 
 knew that he had the chance of renewing these pleasant 
 associations. Mr. Rae-Brown has told how he found 
 lodgings for De Quincey in a suitable spot ; and how 
 assiduously the opium-eater worked to realise all that 
 the new proprietors of the magazine aimed at so far as 
 related to his part of the enterprise. Mr. Troup and he 
 were great friends — the inexhaustible energy of the one 
 was a fit complement for the dreaminess and abstraction 
 of the other — their friendship was certainly based on the 
 admiration of opposite qualities from those that each 
 himself possessed. Troup and De Quincey and a ver- 
 satile Irishman, I have been told, themselves wrote the 
 whole of Taifs Magazine for months running. 
 
 When De Quincey returned from this visit, he settled 
 down for a long period uninterruptedly at Lasswade. 
 He had now overcome the excessive craving for opium 
 by the utmost self-denial, systematic persistence in 
 exercise and strict attention to diet ; and, though he 
 never claimed to have become a total abstainer from 
 opium, he was now able to content himself with a 
 merely ordinary medical dose or not very much beyond 
 it. Certainly, he never again fell into such excesses as \ 
 he had done several times in earlier life. The chronic ^ 
 irritation of the stomach had in great degree been sub- 
 
62 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 dued ; and, though he had still to subsist on the softest 
 and most easily digested of food, he enjoyed, in a sense, 
 more of life than he had done since boyhood. It was the 
 delight of his daughters to minister to him. When Mar- 
 garet married Mr. Robert Craig and went to Ireland, 
 then the chief duty fell to Florence; and when she married 
 Colonel Baird Smith and went to India, this fell upon 
 Emily, who, like the other two, faithfully discharged it. 
 
 At this time De Quincey was visited at Lasswade by 
 many celebrities — Americans and Englishmen ; by Mr. 
 James T. Fields, by Mr. James Payn, and many others, 
 who all went away impressed by his fecundity of thought, 
 his eloquence in conversation, and his courtesy and 
 consideration for others. On one occasion some English 
 people were present, who, knowing that he was an Epis- 
 copalian, were making remarks about Presbyterianism 
 of a qualified kind. He begged them to reserve that 
 part of the conversation, till the time had come when 
 it would not be necessary for the maid to go out and 
 in to the room, as she was a Presbyterian, and he would 
 not wish her to hear things said about her church, that 
 would in any way hurt her feelings. Mr. James Payn, 
 and Mr. Fields, and the Reverend Francis Jacox, have 
 given their impressions of him at this time. All alike 
 remark upon his wonderful talk — his power of bringing, 
 with the utmost ease illustrative references from the 
 most obscure, or unexpected points ; while yet he was 
 in no sense like Coleridge, inclined to indulge in mono- 
 logue; but had the gracious art in high degree of 
 bringing out the views of others — a good listener as well 
 as a good talker. All alike bear testimony, too, to his 
 utter courtesy, Mr. Fields indeed says happily, "so 
 perfect was he in this respect, that, if good manners had 
 not been invented, he would have invented them." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 63 
 
 From the outside world came missives from many 
 distinguished persons — from Mary Russell Mitford 
 among others ; the edition of his works collected and 
 published by Mr. J. T. Fields, in Boston, had done much 
 for his reputation in America, and strongly recalled 
 attention to him in this country, while he, in the dignified 
 simplicity of the home at Lasswade, enjoyed the respect 
 and affection of his neighbours, simply because of his 
 kindly and neighbourly ways, and not on account of 
 his literary work or fame which most of them could 
 hardly have appreciated. Here is a very characteristic 
 trait felicitously revealed by Mrs. Baird Smith, in 
 a way, too, which fully illustrates what has just been 
 said. 
 
 "Nearly the last time we were together, his almost 
 constant companion for some time every day, was the 
 ijephew of one of our maids, a child of about four, who 
 solely for the pleasure of conversation, walked round and 
 round a dull little garden with him. Of this boy I 
 remember one story which amused us. He had asked 
 my father, ' What d'ye call thon tree .' ' To which my 
 father, with the careful consideration he gave to any 
 question, began, ' I am not sure, my dear, but I think it 
 may be a Laurustinus : ' when the child interrupted him 
 with some scorn, ' A Laurustinus ! Lad, d'ye no ken a 
 rhododendron ? ' The ' lad ' must have been about 
 seventy at the time." 
 
 And, in illustration of the same trait, we may here 
 quote the following from the pen of Miss De Quincey : — 
 
 " To upper class funerals he never went, but a sad 
 case in the village aroused his sympathy. John 
 Campbell, the shoemaker in the village, had a little boy 
 
64 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 drowned. A notification arrived, and an invitation to 
 the funeral. To our dismay, my father determined to 
 go, though he had only a dark-blue coat and a brown 
 one. We thought the wearing of such coloured garments 
 at a funeral, the people would take as an insult. How- 
 ever, he came up to show himself after he was dressed — 
 so very like a child, who did not quite like to do a thing 
 he was warned against, and yet was determined to do it ; 
 and at length we were coaxed into agreeing that ' the 
 coat was not so very blue.' But when he got out into 
 the open, the bridegroom-like blueness of the coat made 
 us look at each other and sadly smile. Strange to say, 
 the very people that one would have expected to stand- 
 most on attention to such matters took no notice ; but 
 the little blue figure among the trappings of woe, was 
 taken as much loving care of as the silent little corpse 
 in the coffin. . . The father of an old servant of ours — a 
 carter at Mr. Annandale's mills — lost a little child by 
 scarlet fever. An invitation to the funeral was sent in 
 my father's absence in Glasgow ; and he never heard of 
 it till afterwards when he returned. He, however, to 
 make up, wrote such a really touching letter, that we 
 were told, 'the poor man had it framed, and hungup 
 over his mantel-piece.' " 
 
 XX. 
 
 During De Quincey's stay at Lasswade in these cir- 
 cumstances, he was led one day early in 1850 to think 
 that he might do something that would benefit both 
 parties if he opened communications with Hogg' s Instriic- 
 tor, which then had an extensive circulation through- 
 out Scotland and elsewhere. The late Mr. James Hogg 
 tells how he was surprised one day, when busy in 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 65 
 
 his ofSce, at being told that Mr. Thomas de Quincey, 
 whose writings he well knew, but had never seen, wished 
 to speak to him ; and, on going down, he was confronted 
 with a very striking little figure, dressed in the most 
 unusual style, and wearing an upper coat which also 
 served for an under one. De Quincey said he had read 
 Hogg's Instructor and wished to contribute to it, and 
 here he drew from his pocket a manuscript which he was 
 very careful to brush over with a little brush, which he 
 had with him, before handing the packet to Mr. Hogg. In 
 answer to Mr. Hogg's inquiries, he said that he had walked 
 from Lasswade, and meant to walk back again, as he 
 preferred this to being stuffed into close conveyances. 
 
 The article was, of course, accepted,* and led the 
 way not only to many further contributions to Hogg's 
 Instmctor, and later to Titan, but to what was to 
 him, at that age, and with his natural impatience of 
 certain kinds of systematic work, the gigantic under- 
 taking of the " Collected Works." America, through Mr. 
 Field's enterprise, had shown the way ; but Mr. Hogg 
 urged on him the importance of a collection of his 
 writings from his own hand, revised and arranged 
 according to his own ideas. Finally, he consented to do 
 this, and an agreement was signed ; but lest he should 
 not be able to carry it to a proper conclusion, the 
 volumes were at first titled " Selections Grave and Gay, 
 from the Writings of Thomas de Quincey." 
 
 Mr. Hogg had the art of managing and humouring 
 the strange little man, and, in opposition to all manner 
 of head-shaking and hints that he was doomed to failure 
 in this enterprise, by patience and tact he carried the 
 thing to a satisfactory termination. Mr. Hogg, in the 
 Reminiscences which he contributed to the Memoir of 
 
 * See page 169. 
 
(^ THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 De Quincey, recalls no end of characteristic points — 
 how, for example, the poor Opium-Eater, wherever he 
 went, carried boxes and bundles of books and papers 
 with him, and how he was apt to lose or to leave them 
 on the way, giving, as one instance, that of a big box 
 which he had packed full of valuable things as he 
 thought with which to occupy himself when on a visit 
 to Professor Lushington in Glasgow, and how it came 
 somehow to be left in an obscure bookseller's shop, how 
 De Quincey forgot the address, and it was not unearthed 
 until years afterwards through Mr. Hogg's own exertions. 
 Then, wherever he had had lodgings, he had left 
 memorials of himself in the shape of such gatherings, 
 and then sometimes, when circumstances arose to make 
 him desire to refer to those papers and books, or to get 
 possession of them, there were difficulties, and claims 
 made which very often had no real foundation, as Mr. 
 Hogg from careful investigations in some cases fully 
 satisfied himself of 
 
 Mr. Hogg also tells with what a keen and unceasing 
 curiosity he read the newspapers, showing the greatest 
 interest in all that was going on, and how he followed 
 up every detail in famous murder cases and criminal 
 trials, and was ever ready to discuss these with him : 
 very often throwing the most unexpected and fresh 
 lights upon them. Indeed, he industriously made notes, 
 just as an active newspaper editor would do, of peculiar 
 facts and touches of character revealed in newspaper 
 reports, more especially in police-courts ; and had 
 accumulated such masses of material in this kind that 
 he was never able to recover them, not being equal to 
 the task of systematic commonplace book-keeping ; but 
 some of these drawn from the mass have been given, by 
 way of specimens, and as throwing light on his character 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. f)^ 
 
 and methods, in the volumes of the "Posthumous 
 Writings," as well as various versions of some famous 
 passages which show how he re-wrote and laboriously- 
 corrected in the getting of his finest effects which critics 
 and readers admire. 
 
 For a while De Quincey tried to carry on the work at 
 Lasswade, but no end of diflSculties, fancied and real, 
 arose: and the upshot of it was that, to be near the 
 press, he took lodgings at 42, Lothian Street, Edinburgh. 
 There both Mr. Hogg and his son James* became 
 constant visitors. The connection developed into a 
 genuine friendship — had it not done so, it is hardly 
 possible we should have had an English collected edition 
 of De Quincey's works, Mr. Hogg, senior, tells with a 
 fine humour about the odd ways of his distinguished 
 author — how his rooms got piled up with books and 
 papers, till he had hardly more free space than just to 
 allow him to write on ; how he would himself attend to 
 making up his fire and cleaning his hearth, rather than 
 be interrupted by any intruding attendant at times when 
 he was absorbed in his work ; how Mrs. Wilson, his 
 landlady, and Miss Stark her sister, came to understand 
 their eccentric lodger, and carefully to watch over him — 
 a thing that was sometimes necessary, as he would 
 frequently set papers alight (a tendency from which his 
 daughters suffered also at Lasswade as well as from 
 what they humorously called the " snowing-up ") ; and 
 how he would sit and sip his little glass of much-diluted 
 laudanum, and talk of no end of big projects — a great 
 History of England in six octavo volumes, and so on ! 
 
 He made his periodical visits to Lasswade, which 
 remained his head-quarters to the end, and if he failed 
 to go out there for a longer time than usual, he would 
 
 * The Editor of this volume. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 write to his daughters the most lightsome, humorous 
 letters, of which many samples are given in the Memoir. 
 Sometimes he would arrange for a friend to come for 
 him at Lothian Street, and then they would walk out to 
 Lasswade together : Professor Lushington for one often 
 arranging thus ; and we can easily imagine the kind of 
 talk that took place between them on the way. Mr. 
 Hogg frequently walked out with him to Lasswade, and 
 he tells how agile the little man was even then, how " at 
 seventy he had the nimbleness of a squirrel," and easily 
 outwalked him (though a much younger and taller man) 
 when once they were fairly in the open, and more 
 especially when they had heights to climb. 
 
 By the nicest management and the art of patience and 
 good humour on Messrs. Hogg's part, the great work 
 moved on, slowly yet surely, with many hitches that would 
 have been almost ludicrous but for the seriousness with 
 which the Opium-Eater was apt to view them, and for 
 their effects upon him ; for not seldom, with the task of 
 searching for missing pages, proofs and notes constantly 
 going astray among his vast accumulations of miscel- 
 laneous matter, he was completely prostrated. He found 
 that "stooping killed him," that his memory was not 
 what it had been, and much else ; and yet the work, in 
 face of all these things, was done. 
 
 Cheering influences amid all this labour and trial were 
 the visits of Mr. J. R. Findlay, who, in his " Recollections 
 of De Quincey," has given most attractive and vivid 
 pictures of him at this time. Mr. Findlay and his uncle, 
 Mr. Ritchie, proprietor of The Scotsman, were very 
 fond to tempt the old man eloquent to share their 
 society in George Square as often as they could ; and 
 many a delightful evening did De Quincey spend there. 
 They were fain on one occasion to arrange for a meeting 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 69 
 
 between Thackeray and the Opium-Eater ; but, owing to 
 the circumstances detailed on page 192, he did not go, and 
 thus these two distinguished writers never met. Indeed, 
 a good deal oi finesse and management was needed then, 
 as it had been in former times, as Mr. Robert Chambers 
 and his friends well knew, to beguile the recluse of Lothian 
 Street to anything like a formal party — where, as he 
 said, the most distressing thing to him was to hear his 
 own name shouted out before him, as through a long 
 inverted trumpet of fame. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 He was actually at work on the closing volumes of the 
 " Collected Writings " when the last illness came. He was 
 averse to doctors' treatment ; but he sank so low that his 
 friends were summoned and Dr. Warburton Begbie was 
 called in. It is very characteristic of De Quincey that 
 he soon transformed this distinguished physician into a 
 friend, and Dr. Begbie's account of the last moments 
 along with those of Miss de Quincey, who faithfully 
 attended to and nursed him, furnish a complete record of 
 the last scenes. Dr. Warburton Begbie's account was 
 published in The Scotsman, and a large portion of it 
 was reproduced in the Memoir, and there he does full 
 justice to the fine courtesy, frankness, and beautiful 
 humility of the old man. He died on the 7th December, 
 1859, and lies buried in St. Cuthbert's Churchyard, a 
 stone memorial, erected by his friends, marking the spot. 
 
 A very peculiar coincidence was that just as he 
 breathed his last, a letter was received for him from 
 his old schoolfellow, Edward Grinfield, wishing to ex- 
 change good wishes before they should be called from 
 earth. 
 
70 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Thomas de Quincey married Elizabeth Penson. 
 
 Issue : — 
 
 1. Jane (died about two years old). 
 
 2. Elizabeth (died about nine years old). 
 
 3. William (died in his eighteenth year). 
 
 4. Mary (in 1819 married the Rev. Philip Serle, and died in 
 
 childbed about eighteen months afterwards). 
 
 5. Thomas (bom 1785, died 1859). 
 
 6. Richard (written of by De Quincey as " My Brother Pink " 
 
 — supposed to have been killed in the Blue Mountains, 
 Jamaica, after many adventures, when about 25 years 
 of age). 
 
 7. Jane (lived to a good old age). 
 
 8. Henry (the H. of the "Autobiographic Sketches ; " a post- 
 
 humous child. He belonged to Brasenose College, 
 Oxford, and died in his 26th year). 
 
 Thomas de Quincey married Margaret Simpson. 
 
 Issue : — 
 
 1. William (who died about 1835, in his eighteenth year ; 
 
 referred to by his father as a student of great promise). 
 
 2. Margaret (who died in 1871, in Ireland, at the residence of 
 
 her husband, Mr. Robert Craig. He died in 1886). 
 
 3. Horace (an officer in the 26th Cameronians ; was engaged 
 
 in the China Campaign under Sir Hugh Gough, and died 
 there in 1842). 
 
 4. Francis (a medical man, who settled in Brazil and died in 
 
 Rio Janeiro in 1861 of yellow fever). 
 
 5. Paul Frederick (an officer in the 70th Regiment ; fought at 
 
 Sobraon, and served aU through the Indian Mutiny. He 
 was military secretary to General Galloway in the Maori 
 War, and as a reward for services received a grant of 
 land. He settled there and died in 1894). 
 
 6. Florence (who married Colonel Baird Smith, the Chief 
 
 Engineer at the siege of Delhi, where he received wounds 
 from which he never recovered). 
 
 7. Julius (who died in 1833, about 4 years of age). 
 
 8. Emily, 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 7,1 
 
 NOTES OF CONVERSATIONS WITH 
 THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 By RICHARD WOODHOUSE,* 
 
 September 28, 1821. — The Opium-Eater was formerly 
 (indeed he is still) a great admirer of Wordsworth. So 
 much was he so, that he could not even bring himself to 
 mention his name in Oxford, for fear of having to 
 encounter ridiculous observations or jeering abuse of his 
 favourite, who was laughed at by most of the Qxonians. 
 Of this he felt himself so impatient that he forbore even 
 to speak upon the subject. 
 
 Meeting one time with Charles Lamb, who he under- 
 stood had praised Wordsworth's poetry, he was induced 
 to mention that poet's name, and to speak of him in high 
 terms. Lamb gave him praise, but rather more qualified 
 than the Opium-Eater expected, who spoke with much 
 warmth on the subject, and complained that Lamb did 
 not do Wordsworth justice ; upon which Lamb, in his 
 dry, facetious way, observed, " If we are to talk in this 
 strain, we ought to have said grace before we began our 
 conversation." This observation so annoyed the Opium- 
 Eater that he instantly left the room, and has never 
 seen Lamb since. 
 
 "This anecdote the Opium-Eater told me," said 
 Hessey, " himself, along with some others of a similar 
 tenor, in exemplification of points in his own character. 
 He told it with much humour, and was quite sensible 
 
 * See Preface, page ix., and page 103. 
 
72 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 how ridiculous his conduct was ; and he will be glad to 
 see Lamb again, who he supposes must have long since 
 forgotten or forgiven the circumstance." 
 
 On Wednesday the 28th, and Thursday, 29th October, 
 182 1, I passed the evenings at Taylor and Hessey's, in 
 company with the author of " Confessions of an English 
 Opium-Eater," published in Nos. 21 and 22 of the 
 London Magazine. I had formed to myself the idea 
 of a tall, thin, pale, gentlemanly-looking, courtier-like 
 man ; but I met a short, sallow-looking person, of a very 
 peculiar cast of countenance, and apparently much an 
 invalid. His demeanour was very gentle, modest, and 
 unassuming ; and his conversation fully came up to the 
 idea I had formed of what would be that of the writer of 
 those articles. He seems well acquainted with many of 
 the literary men of the present day. He has for some 
 time past lived near Wordsworth in Westmoreland, near 
 Grasmere, where he had met Southey, Wilson, and the 
 Edinburgh men. He knew Sir Walter Scott, Lockhart, 
 and the majority of the Blackwood writers. I learned 
 from him that he was for some time at Morgan's school 
 in Bath, where I had been about two years after he left 
 it, and that Morgan was the " ripe " scholar he alluded to 
 in his " Confessions." He was a day-boarder there ; he 
 was at first under Wilkins, the under-master (who now 
 has the school), but he used always to show his Latin 
 verse exercises up to Morgan with the two upper classes. 
 He says he has often observed Morgan pointing him out 
 with his cane to the boys in his upper classes, particu- 
 larly when they brought up their verses to him, and the 
 larger boys would threaten him and compel him to do 
 their exercises for them. 
 
 From Morgan's he was removed to the Rev. Mr. 
 Spencer's, at Winkfield, near Bath, where two of my 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 73 
 
 brothers went. He found a great difference between 
 the two masters. Being one of the head boys in this 
 latter school, he found he could do pretty much as he 
 pleased. He with some of the others at that school 
 set up a periodical work, as it may be termed, in con- 
 junction with one of Mr. Spencer's daughters. They 
 each furnished in turn written essays or disquisitions. 
 Of these they collected about eighty, "some of which," 
 said the Opium-Eater, " I met with among my papers 
 within the last three months." It was from this school 
 that he took his departure so unceremoniously.* He is 
 now thirty-six years of age. His constitution is much 
 shattered. He has reduced his daily potion of laudanum 
 from 8,000 to about 80 drops, but he occasionally takes 
 more, and whenever he is obliged to do this for any 
 length of time the consequence is a great irritation in his 
 stomach — he feels there an itching which he is obliged 
 to bear, and unable by any means to allay. This is 
 accompanied by a tendency in his stomach to turn 
 everything to acid, and no alkaline medicine has any 
 effect upon this. The only medicine that reaches this 
 disorder is that prescribed by the surgeon he alluded to 
 in his " Confessions." He says this sensation of itching is 
 so dreadful that if it were to last much longer than it 
 usually does (about eight or ten hours), it would drive 
 him out of his mind. 
 
 The Opium-Eater appears to have read a great deal, 
 and to have thought much more. I was astonished at 
 the depth and reality, if I may so call it, of his know- 
 ledge. He seems to have passed nothing that occurred 
 in the course of his study unreflected on or unremem- 
 
 * Woodhouse must of course have misunderstood De Quincey, 
 as the school from which he absconded was the Manchester 
 Grammar School. 
 
74 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 bered. His conversation appeared like the elaboration 
 of a mine of results : and if at any time a general 
 observation of his became matter of question or ulterior 
 disquisition it was found that he had ready his reasons 
 at a moment's notice ; so that it was clear that his 
 opinions were the fruits of his own reflections on what 
 had come before him, and had not been taken up from 
 others. Indeed, this last clearly appeared, since upon 
 most of the topics that arose he was able to give a very 
 satisfactory account, not merely of what books had been 
 written upon those subjects, but of what opinions had 
 been entertained upon them, together with his own 
 judgments of those opinions, his acquiescence in them, or 
 qualifications in them. Upon almost every* subject that 
 was introduced he had not only that general information 
 which is easily picked up in literary society or from 
 books, but that minute and accurate acquaintance with 
 the details that can be acquired only from personal 
 investigation of a subject and reflection upon it at the 
 same time. Taylor led him into political economy, into 
 the Greek and Latin accents, into antiquities, Roman 
 roads, old castles, the origin and analogy of languages ; 
 upon all these he was informed to considerable minute- 
 ness. The same with regard to Shakespeare's sonnets, 
 Spenser's minor poems, and the great writers and 
 characters of Elizabeth's age and those of Cromwell's 
 time. His judgments of books, of writers, of politics, 
 were particularly satisfactory and sound. He is a slight 
 Danish scholar, a moderate Italian, a good Frenchman, 
 except as to pronunciation, and it seemed to me an 
 excellent German scholar. He spoke of writing German 
 articles and translations for the London Magazine. He 
 had an immense fund of literary anecdotes respecting 
 the living writers. He had, he said, conducted a journal 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 75 
 
 in the north {The Westmoreland Gazette). It was set 
 up with a view of supporting the Lowther interest. 
 " But," said he, " I so managecl it as to preserve my 
 independence, and it happened that during the year and 
 a half that I was the conductor of the paper, the name 
 of Lowther was scarcely ever mentioned in the leading 
 articles." 
 
 November ^rd, 182 1. — This evening also I passed in 
 his company, and had fresh reason to admire the variety 
 and extent of his acquisitions in the different branches of 
 knowledge, and the soundness of his judgments. I was 
 also pleased with the candour with which he confessed 
 his unacquaintance with different subjects, at the same 
 time showing by his remarks that he had very good 
 general knowledge of the outlines of them, and of the 
 groundworks on which they were erected. He has gone 
 very deep in the German metaphysics, and particularly 
 studied Kant's works. He is well acquainted with 
 Coleridge, and they have in a great measure pursued the 
 same studies. But he observed that Coleridge had 
 mixed up his own fancies and mysticalities so much 
 with the Kantian philosophy, that it was difficult for 
 him (the Opium-Eater) to judge of the exact extent of 
 Coleridge's acquaintance with Kant's system. He 
 thinks very meanly of Dugald Stewart, who has no 
 originality or grasp of mind in him, who constantly 
 misunderstands and misquotes writers from taking 
 their opinions at second-hand from others, and then 
 falling foul of them. He has taken the account of Kant, 
 as well as some passages of rank nonsense cited as 
 Kant's, from a French writer whom he quotes and 
 praises much in his introductory dissertation prefixed 
 to one part of the Encyclopcedia Britannica Supplement 
 (Degerando). All Dugald Stewart's disquisitions are 
 
^6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 little, and the subject of them of no moment, even if 
 true. He is thought little of at Edinburgh, or on 
 the Continent. In the latter the only consideration he 
 meets with is from his talent as a writer on polite 
 literature. 
 
 The Mr. A. is Mr. Addington, brother of Hiley 
 Addington, in the Opium-Eater's "Confessions" men- 
 tioned as an opium-eater. 
 
 The Opium-Eater entered himself some time back at 
 the Middle Temple, with the view of being called to the 
 bar, but he did not keep many terms. 
 
 On the subject of reading poetry, he observed that 
 Wilson's character of countenance is generally very 
 lively, but this leaves him the moment he begins to 
 read poetry; his face then assumes a conventicle 
 appearance, and his voice a methodistical drawl that is 
 quite distressing. Southey mouths it out like a wolf 
 howling. Coleridge lengthens the vowels and reads so 
 monotonously, slowly, and abstractedly, that you can 
 scarce make out what he says, and you lose the rhythm. 
 Wordsworth sometimes reads very well. 
 
 It seems to me, from the manner in which the Opium- 
 Eater recited a few lines occasionally which he had 
 occasion to quote, that the reading upon which in his 
 " Confessions " he piques himself would scarcely appear 
 good to most people. He reads with too inward a 
 voice ; he dwells much upon the long vowels (this he 
 does in his conversation, which makes it resemble more 
 a speech delivered in a debating society than the 
 varitonous discourse usually held among friends) ; he 
 ekes out particular syllables, has generally much appear- 
 ance of intensity, and, in short, removes his tone and 
 manner rather too much from the mode of common 
 language. Hence I could not always catch the words 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. ^7 
 
 in his quotations, and though one acquainted with the 
 quotation beforehand would relish it the more from 
 having an opportunity afforded of dwelling upon it, and 
 from hearing the most made of those particular parts 
 for the sake of which it is brought forward, yet general 
 hearers would be left far behind, and in a state of wonder 
 at the quoter. I learned from him that he has several 
 works in hand. He is about to write a few notes to 
 Taylor's pamphlet,* for which purpose he is to have my 
 interleaved copy. He is to write for the London 
 Magazine an introduction to some English hexameters 
 which he has composed ; he is to write on the mode of 
 reading Latin ; on Kant's philosophy ; on Coleridge's 
 literary character ; on Richter ; to translate and abridge 
 some tales from the German ; to translate from the 
 same an introduction to the weather observations and 
 meteorological tables ; to sketch out a closing address to 
 the volume of the London' Magazine ending December 
 next, and give No. 3 of the Opium-Eater's " Confessions " 
 for the February number]; togwrite a series of letters to 
 a young man of talent whose education had been 
 neglected ; to write on political economy. 
 
 The anecdote told by Hazlitt in the London Magazine, 
 vol. 3, is true. Wordsworth was the person, and Mrs. 
 Lloyd was the friend at whose house he snuffed out 
 one of the candles. The rest of the story, respecting 
 the order to the servant when the nobleman dined with 
 Wordsworth, is a fabrication for the sake of effect. The 
 Opium-Eater, to whom Lloyd told it, knowing from the 
 character of Wordsworth that it could not be true, 
 cross-examined Lloyd and ascertained its incorrectness. 
 
 * " The Restoration of National Prosperity shown to be imme- 
 diately practicable." By the author of " Junius Identified " {Le. 
 John Taylor). London, 1821. 
 
78 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Wordsworth would, in fact, scorn to be thought to 
 interfere with the domestic management of his establish- 
 ment, and would despise any man who should do. He 
 would rather be thought, if possible, not to know there 
 was such a thing. Lloyd is the author of some novels : * 
 in one of these he gives a picture of Coleridge (under 
 the title of Edmund Oliver). His novels are all full of 
 excessive sentimentality, or rather sensitiveness — this 
 indeed is his character. He has been insane, and his 
 insanity originated from his extreme and intense 
 nervousness. He is quite harmless on those occasions. 
 He made his escape from the retreat or the asylum, 
 near York, and wandered about the country. The 
 Opium-Eater once met him in Westmoreland when 
 under one of these fits. They walked along for some 
 time together ; at length, in one of the loveliest and 
 wildest spots, near one of the most retired and wild of 
 the lakes, Lloyd suddenly stopped, and in great agita- 
 tion asked the Opium-Eater if he knew who he was. 
 " I dare say," he continued, " you think you know me ; 
 but you do not, and you cannot. I am the author of all 
 evil ; Sir, I am the devil. By what inscrutable decree 
 of Providence it is that I was foredoomed from all 
 eternity to be this malevolent being, I cannot tell." 
 
 * He does not appear to have published more than one, 
 " Edmund Oliver,'' printed at Bristol in 1798, and dedicated to 
 Charles Lamb. It is a novel with a purpose, "written," says the 
 author, " with the design of counteracting that generalizing spirit 
 which seems so much to have insinuated itself among modern 
 philosophers." Godwin is the writer chiefly combated. It is 
 eloquent, impassioned, and although, as De Quincey says, some- 
 what too sentimental, on the whole a work of considerable merit. 
 ' The incidents relative to the army," it is stated, " were given me 
 by an intimate friend." Coleridge is no doubt the person indicated, 
 but there seems no other ground for considering him to be intro- 
 duced into the book. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 79 
 
 He then cast his eyes upwards to heaven, and 
 remained silent for a short time. " I know," he then 
 said, " you will not believe me, but it is of no conse- 
 quence : I feel satisfied that it is so." " I said to him," 
 said the Opium-Eater, "I certainly had thought dif- 
 ferently, and still did, but it would be more satisfactory 
 to me to hear what his reasons were. He then said, 
 ' I know who you are ; you are nobody, a nonentity ; 
 you have no being. You will not agree with me, and 
 you will attempt to argue with me, and thus to prove 
 that you do exist ; but it is not so, you do not exist at 
 all. It is merely appearance, and not reality. There is, 
 and there can be, but one other real being besides 
 myself.' He then," said the Opium-Eater, "entered 
 into a variety of arguments to convince me he was what 
 he pretended. This was what I wanted. I had set his 
 understanding at work. He reasoned and reasoned, and 
 became more himself and more cheerful, and the fancy 
 wore away by degrees." 
 
 " He is," said the Opium-Eater, " the very worst 
 possible writer, though a man of talent in a particular 
 way, in every style except one — that of a sort of 
 Rousseauish feeling and sentiment. His novels are full 
 of it." Taylor mentioned that he had had some MS. 
 novels in verse of his, which were all of that class, and 
 would not do for the magazine, for which purpose they 
 were offered. 
 
 The Opium-Eater mentioned that when he called 
 upon Murray in town, the latter had spoken to him of 
 "your patron, Lord Lowther." "Now," said the 
 Opium-Eater, " the word patron is a favourite word with 
 me, from its association with those high and noble 
 instances of patronage, about the age of Elizabeth, 
 when great men took a pride and pleasure in fostering 
 
8o THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 ability, and lending their names and protection to 
 authors. This patronage was without humiliation or 
 servility : each party felt that he was receiving as well 
 as conferring a benefit. The poet in return for present 
 countenance and favours, had it in his power to transmit 
 his patron's name down with honour to posterity. He 
 made a sort of glory of this mutual obligation, and the 
 praise that he gave, though somewhat excessive, was the 
 poetic garb in which he decked the expression of his 
 own excited feelings. It was the illumination which 
 genius and enthusiasm always throw round their subject. 
 At the same time that they thus made their offerings or 
 expressed their gratitude to their noble friends, they did 
 not scruple to tell them that those offerings and those 
 thanks would be the means by which their names and 
 characters would be handed down to future times. 
 Shakespeare's sonnets to his patron are full of these 
 vaunts of conscious genius. 
 
 'And thou in this shall find thy monument, 
 When tyrant's tombs and crests of brass are spent.' 
 'Thy monument shall be my gentle verse,' etc. 
 ' Yet be most proud of that which I compile.' 
 
 And others to the same purport ; Spenser and Ben 
 Jonson the same. 
 
 " These addresses were grand and noble ; they carried 
 in themselves an excuse for their flattery. They had 
 a redeeming power about them which causes them to be 
 better and better liked the further the reader is removed 
 from the actual time of their composition. They were 
 very different from the gross and excessive adulation of 
 the wits of Anne's days. Dryden's dedications are 
 artful, elaborate, and energetic, but fulsome ; there is no 
 heart in them. The writer knew they were untrue when 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 8 1 
 
 he wrote them ; he wrote them for gain or its equivalent 
 and they have about them, and suggest to the reader, 
 the idea of insincerity and outrageous exaggeration. 
 This style could not continue ; Dryden had carried it to 
 its utmost extent, and it ceased after him. The dedi- 
 cators of the next age rather insinuated than expressly 
 assigned to those they addressed the virtues and 
 perfections incident to humanity. But the same insin- 
 cerity is apparent to the reader. The approved forms 
 ran thus : ' If it was not notorious how averse your 
 lordship is to have those qualities in which you far 
 surpass not only your contemporaries, but also the 
 greatest men of antiquity, made known to the world, I 
 should consider myself blamable if in this address I 
 were to pass over that nobility, etc., etc' 
 
 " Even Addison has too much of this in the prefaces 
 to his Spectators. But I was about to observe that, 
 whether for this, or some other reason, the word patron 
 has fallen into unrepute. And though I was convinced 
 that Mr. Murray had no intention' to offend me, yet I 
 was satisfied that he did not use the word in its best, 
 and if I may so say, its Elizabethan sense — and I felt 
 that the use of it to any one at this day in the manner 
 in which Mr. Murray used it, was, to say the least, 
 unthinking. But Mr. Murray is quite a man of the 
 world, and has a different behaviour for everyone, 
 according to the idea he has of the relative importance 
 to himself of the party. And I should imagine that the 
 kind of reception one meets with from Murray would be 
 a tolerably correct indication of the estimation in which 
 one stands with people of a certain description with 
 whom Mr. Murray is connected. His behaviour towards 
 me was quite different from what it had been in West- 
 moreland, when he pressed me for an article, and insisted 
 
 G 
 
82 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 that I should never come to town without calling upon 
 him, and enlarged upon the pleasure he should have to 
 see me. But three hundred miles makes a great difference 
 in some people," 
 
 The Opium-Eater here went into an account of his 
 connection with the paper set up by the Lowthers, which 
 I have already briefly noticed, to show how little he was 
 of a client (to use an Horatian expression) of Lord 
 Lowther : whom, indeed, he had never seen above twice, 
 and then at election dinners. 
 
 The above anecdote I have set down, with the 
 disquisition on patronage connected with it, in the first 
 person, because, though not the very language of the 
 narrator, it contains the substance of what he said, and is 
 given somewhat in his manner, and in the order in which 
 he gave it ; and it will afford some idea of the general 
 tenor of his conversation, and of the richness of his mind,* 
 and of the facility with which he brings in the stores of 
 his reading and reflection to bear upon the ordinary topics 
 of conversation. But it can convey no adequate impres- 
 sion of the eloquence and scope of his language. The 
 subject was incidentally introduced by something said of 
 the Quarterly Review ; the incident had occurred some 
 time back, and the whole thing, though it assumes from its 
 air and coherence the character of a preconceived show- 
 off, was quite ex improviso. That it was really so will be 
 
 * De Quincey says himself of his talents for conversation : 
 " Having the advantage of a prodigious memory, and the far 
 greater advantage of a logical instinct for feeling in a moment the 
 secret analogies or parallelisms that connected things else appa- 
 rently remote, I enjoyed these two peculiar gifts for conversation : 
 first, an inexhaustible fertihty of topics, and therefore of resources 
 for illustrating or for varying any subject that chance or purpose 
 suggested ; secondly, a prematurely awakened sense of art applied 
 to conversation." — Qpium-Eater, ed. 1862, p. 135. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 83 
 
 evident at once to those who are in the habit of asso- 
 ciating with him, and of hearing him, as it were, overlay 
 every little topic with rich discussion and valuable 
 information and reflection thrown in quasi ex abundanti. 
 
 Reynolds when in fine cue, and amongst friends, is 
 equally ready and lavish in his wit, sporting it extem- 
 pore on every subject, and with astonishing good-humour 
 and freedom from acrimony or personality. 
 
 i^rd November, 1821, — I dined at Taylor's with Dr. 
 Darling, Perceval, and the Opium-Eater. In the course 
 of the evening the latter mentioned that the person he 
 alludes to in his " Confessions " as far exceeding him- 
 self in the quantity taken of opium is Coleridge. The 
 Opium-Eater was speaking to a surgeon in the north, a 
 neighbour of Coleridge's, who supplied Coleridge with 
 laudanum, and who, upon a calculation made as to the 
 quantity consumed by Coleridge, found it to amount to 
 80,000 drops per day. The first time Coleridge went to 
 the house of this surgeon, he was not at home, but his 
 wife supplied Coleridge, and she saw him at once fill out 
 a large wineglassful and drink it off. She was aston- 
 ished, and in much alarm explained to him what the 
 medicine was, as she imagined he had made a mistake. 
 Very soon afterwards he drank off another glassful, and 
 before he left the house he had emptied a half-pint bottle 
 in addition. 
 
 The Opium-Eater said that he himself once, at the 
 time when he was taking 8,000 drops per day, but when 
 he was not in the habit of measuring what he took, was 
 in some danger from the quantity he had taken. He 
 had been sitting for some time engaged in reading, and 
 had been helping himself to laudanum, almost uncon- 
 sciously, and without reflecting how much he was taking, 
 when he suddenly found himself dizzy and heavy, and 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 very much inclined to sleep ; he also perceived, as it 
 were, the fumes rising to his brain. He exerted himself 
 to get up and walk about : for if he had remained quiet, 
 in one minute he should have fallen asleep in his chair. 
 He then took an emetic and brought off much of what 
 he had taken, and thus rescued himself from the danger. 
 
 The house in which the Opium-Eater lived, as 
 mentioned in his " Confessions," rent free, and which is 
 in a street leading out of Oxford Street, is in Greek 
 Street, and the house is the corner house in that street, 
 partly in the square, on the right hand as you go down 
 from Oxford Street. The master had other offices else- 
 where at which he carried on his game. He went by 
 several names,* 
 
 The Opium-Eater tells a curious tale of his practices 
 upon a foolish butcher who fancied he had a literary 
 talent, and whose intellectual abilities his landlord for 
 his own ends flattered in a most fulsome way, but so as 
 nearly to turn the poor butcher's brain with vanity. 
 
 Sir William Jones was a man of much talent ; but he 
 cannot be called a man of genius, for he wanted passion 
 to attach him to one particular pursuit ; instead of which 
 he was studying all subjects for a season in turn, and so 
 he was never great in any one. 
 
 2nd December, 1821. — I dined at Dewint'swith Taylor, 
 Cunningham, and the Opium-Eater ; a Mr. Wilson, a 
 Catholic gentleman and an antiquary, came in after 
 dinner. Cunningham mentioned that a report had 
 been spread in the north that Bloomfield had sustained 
 considerable loss by the failure of Vernor and Hood. 
 Taylor thought the rumour was entirely without founda- 
 tion. Cunningham observed that Hogg, the Ettrick 
 Shepherd, had set about a similar story respecting his own 
 * See page 34. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 85 
 
 losses by the failure of a bookseller at Edinburgh, named 
 Gibson, who had published for him. Gibson happened 
 to hear the report ; and when he went to Edinburgh 
 and had traced the rumour to Hogg, he, to Hogg's great 
 surprise, made his appearance, and demanded of Hogg 
 his reason for such a misrepresentation. Hogg, with much 
 candour, answered, " Ah, sir, I thought you were dead." 
 
 Cunningham spoke of Hogg as having much energy 
 and animation in his manner, considerable self-possession, 
 and a very ready knack at answering. 
 
 When Wilkie showed Hogg some of his pictures, the 
 latter looked over them one by one, and when it was 
 apparent that he was expected to say something, he 
 looked first at the works and then at the painter several 
 times, as though comparing them together, and then said, 
 " It's weel you're so young a man." The expression 
 bore two constructions. Wilkie took it as a compliment, 
 and bowed. 
 
 The Opium-Eater, in the course of a conversation on 
 versifying, and the sort of compensation in poetical 
 melody which requires a heavy or spondaic line after a 
 dactylic or lighter one, noticed Milton's excellence in 
 that respect, and quoted different passages in proof, 
 among which were the following : — 
 
 "Thence to the famous orators repair. 
 Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence 
 Wielded at will that fierce Democratic, 
 Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 
 To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne." 
 
 (P. R. iv., 1. 267.) 
 
 Oxford and classical learning, and the general ability 
 of University men next came on the carpet ; when the 
 Opium-Eater mentioned with surprise, as though it was 
 a sort of stigma upon the University, that a man like 
 
S6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Copleston who had so little in him, and had done so 
 little to distinguish himself, should be thought so much of, 
 and be so quoted with pride by Oxonians as an honour 
 to the University. " It seems," he said, " to be a virtual 
 condemnation by themselves of their University ; for if 
 Ae be the highest, what must the lowest be ; and what 
 must be the general standard ! " The Opium- Eater was 
 himself of Oxford. 
 
 He then mentioned having had a presentiment, on 
 leaving his residence on a visit to London some time 
 back, that he should never again see a little child of 
 Wordsworth's, who was afflicted and had but the use of 
 one of its sides. It was a sweet little girl, about three 
 years old, and the Opium-Eater was much attached to 
 her. One night while he was here, he heard a dog 
 howling in a dismal manner at his door : it howled 
 three times, and the Opium-Eater with some curiosity 
 waited to hear a fourth howl, but in vain ; the dog 
 passed on and was silent. This happened on some 
 particular day, either Christmas or New Year's Eve* 
 (which was named by him to Taylor), and he noticed 
 the time particularly. The effect was so vivid upon the 
 Opium-Eater's sensations that he at once began to con- 
 sider which of all the persons he knew and loved might 
 most, probably be in trouble or dying at that time ; and 
 he thought that this little child was the most likely one of 
 whom he might expect to receive ill news. He waited 
 with some anxiety for the post on the day on which 
 intimation of anything that might have occurred at home 
 at the period he -had noted would reach him in due 
 course. He listened to the postman and heard him in 
 the street, but he passed by his door without knocking. 
 
 • De Quincey's memory deceived him. The child [died on 
 June 5, 1812. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, 8/ 
 
 However, in the course of the day he received by the 
 second post a letter sealed with black wax. It was from 
 Miss Wordsworth (Wordsworth's sister), who, knowing 
 how partial he had been to the child, had written to him 
 to apprise him of its death. 
 
 6th December, 1821. — I dined at Taylor and Hessey's 
 this day, in company with the Opium-Eater, Reynolds, 
 Lamb, Cunningham, Rice, Hood, Wainwright, and 
 Talfourd. About one o'clock I accompanied the 
 Opium-Eater home : we knocked several times, but no 
 one answered the door, and he accepted my proposition 
 of spending the night in my chambers. We accordingly 
 returned to the Temple, and lighted a fire. The night 
 passed away rapidly in most interesting conversation, 
 and at eight in the morning I saw him home. In the 
 course of the night he expressed a desire to try the 
 effect of tabacco upon his stomach, for he observed he 
 had been lately indisposed, so much so that he found 
 himself obliged to increase his dose of laudanum to 
 200 drops per day, yet that day he had taken but 100 in 
 the morning, but had omitted to take the like quantity 
 as usual about four o'clock in the afternoon. The 
 consequence was, that his stomach had been painful all 
 the evening, and he thought this a fair opportunity for 
 making the experiment. He smoked half a cigar, until 
 he felt his head slightly dizzy; but this soon went 
 off, and he observed in about half an hour after that 
 the smoking had quieted the irritation in his stomach. 
 He smoked the half of another in the course of the 
 night ; and he seemed to think it not unlikely that he 
 might be able to substitute in a great measure the use of 
 tabacco for that of opium. 
 
 The evening at Taylor's had passed very pleasantly 
 to all but the Opium-Eater. Lamb, Rice, and Reynolds 
 
88 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 were particularly lively and facetious ; jokes were 
 lavished sufficient to furnish a new Joe Miller. — "Mr. 
 Lamb," said John Taylor, " I shall be happy to take 
 wine with you. Is that the hock you have before you ? " 
 " Hoc est," said Lamb. Lamb on a former evening had 
 overthrown his glass by accident. " Never mind," said 
 Taylor, " it is soon replaced." " Ah ! " said Lamb, 
 shaking his head, " oc-cidit ! " 
 
 Lamb, observing the Opium-Eater to be very still, 
 began a sort of playful attack upon him by way of 
 rousing him, and desired he would, as he knew of old he 
 could, be entertaining and facetious ; he also added 
 something in a jeering but good-humoured way about 
 Oxford Street. The Opium-Eater seemed very un- 
 happy at this, and assured Lamb and the company that 
 he was far from well, and it was totally out of his power 
 at that moment to enter into the conversation, and he 
 hoped they would not take it ill that he sat silent. 
 After Lamb and the rest were gone, the Opium-Eater 
 said to Taylor, Hessey, and myself, which he repeated 
 when he arrived at my chambers, that he had felt it out of 
 his power through indisposition to take part in what had 
 been going forward, and he hoped none of those who 
 had left them would attribute it to an improper motive. 
 He added, that if he Aad been in good health, he could 
 not have entered into conversation on any subject 
 connected with his opium-eating confessions, after the 
 manner and tone of levity and half-jeering in which 
 Lamb had made allusion to them. "There are," said 
 he, " certain places and events and circumstances which 
 have been mixed up or connected with parts of my life 
 which have been very unfortunate, and these, from 
 constant meditation and reflection upon them, have 
 obtained with me a sort of sacredness, and become 
 
His FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 89 
 
 associated with solemn feelings, so that I cannot bear 
 without the greatest mental agony to advert to the 
 subject, or to hear it adverted to by others in any tone 
 of levity or witticism. It seems to me a sort of desecra- 
 tion and unhallowing analogous to the profanation of a 
 temple, when the subjects are approached in conversation 
 by any one unless in a feeling of sympathy and serious- 
 ness, and I would rather suffer the most excruciating 
 bodily pains than the shock my whole nature feels at 
 hearing these topics discussed in a ludicrous manner or 
 made the ground of raillery." 
 
 Speaking of the characters of minds of different 
 people, and indeed of various whole classes, he took 
 notice that he considered the minds of the people in his 
 own neighbourhood as being particularly gross and 
 uncharitable. That they were fond of retailing anec- 
 dotes, however horrible, as true, without ever taking the 
 trouble to ascertain their foundation, or caring at all 
 whether they were true or not. This he attributes to the 
 want of novelty and stimulus operating upon the vacant 
 and inactive minds of people having no worldly cares to 
 occupy them, rather than to any inherent maliciousness. 
 The worst was that these tales, though they always 
 cease to be current when any newer scandal is imported 
 to supply their place, are yet liable at any time to be 
 recalled from their temporary oblivion, and indeed are 
 so ; and they often acquire more effect in their revived 
 state than they had originally ; for at that time, though 
 all repeated them, yet they were recent, and easily 
 proved if true, and the very circumstance that every one 
 had the same story, yet no one could vouch it, or 
 personally knew anything of it, satisfied all the world 
 that there was nothing in it. Yet when a story was 
 revived, it was always mentioned with an on dit and 
 
90 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 as having been well known and the common talk at the 
 time it happened, so that the rumour had thus more 
 chance of meeting belief than when it was first sent 
 abroad, and "the last state of the lie is worse than 
 the first." The Opium- Eater mentioned several stories, 
 entirely groundless, and carrying in their very horror an 
 assurance of their falsehood and absurdity. 
 
 ?>th December, 182 1. — The Opiura-Eater was reading at 
 Taylor's the notice in the Literary Gazette of Keats,* 
 introduced into a critique upon Shelley's " Adonais," a 
 poem on the death of Keats, and he expressed in the 
 strongest terms his execration of such a rascally and 
 villainous assault upon the memory of anyone scarcely 
 yet cold in his tomb. 
 
 The Opium-Eater mentioned that Wilson had sent 
 him Shelley's "Revolt of Islam,"t with a request that 
 he would write a review of it for Blackwood's Magazine. 
 This the Opium-Eater would not do, but he read it, and 
 was surprised to find in it more ability of a particular 
 sort than he expected, or indeed than he had conceived 
 
 * This remarkable piece of criticism appeared in the Literary 
 Gazette of December 8, 1821, and certainly merits the palm among 
 all the disgraceful reviews of the period for stupidity as regards 
 Shelley and brutality as regards Keats. It begins, "We have 
 already given some of our columns to this writer's merits, and we 
 will not now repeat our convictions of his incurable absurdity. . . . 
 Adonais is an elegy on a foolish young man, who, after writing 
 some volumes of very weak, and in the greater part of very indecent 
 poetry, died some time since of a consumption, the breaking down 
 of an infirm constitution having in all probability been accelerated 
 by the discarding his neckcloth. . . . We give a verse at random, 
 premising that there is no story in the elegy " (!). 
 
 t The review, written by Wilson, but as it now appears inspired 
 by De Quincey, was published in Blackwood for January, 1819, 
 and, with the subsequent notices of " Alastor" and " Prometheus 
 Unbound " in the same periodical, is by far the worthiest recogni- 
 tion that Shelley's genius received in his lifetime. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 9 1 
 
 Shelley, whom he knew, and who had been his neighbour 
 in the Lakes, to possess. He returned Wilson the book, 
 with a letter stating his judgment of the work, and very- 
 soon there appeared a flaming article by Wilson in the 
 magazine praising the book very highly. "Evelyn's 
 Memoirs " — a Weak, good-for-little book, which has been 
 unaccountably much praised by weak people, and the 
 praise thus lavished has been repeated over and over 
 again by persons who take all their opinions upon trust. 
 He was a shallow, empty, cowardly, vain, assuming 
 coxcomb. It is not endurable to hear such a prig of a 
 fellow, who ran away from England at the very time of 
 danger, and remained in Italy looking at pictures and 
 collecting butterflies during the time the war was going 
 on, and who came back the moment all the fighting was 
 over and the business done, abusing the fine spirits who 
 died in the popular cause as rebels, etc. He was a mere 
 literary fribble, a fop and a smatterer affecting natural 
 history and polite learning, and yet his stupid memoirs 
 are praised to the very echo. They are useful as now 
 and then enabling one to fix the date of a particular 
 event, but for little besides. The mind of a man is very 
 generally seen in the use he makes of a journal. 
 Evelyn's is very meagre and bad. You meet, for 
 instance, with such matters recorded as that he dined 
 with this person of quality, or called upon or was visited 
 by that man of distinction, without more. Nothing that 
 the party said in conversation is noted ; nothing is 
 stated as arising out of, or depending upon, the visit ; 
 the purpose of setting the circumstance down at all 
 seems to be merely to give an idea of the consequence 
 which the writer imagines himself to derive from being 
 considered an acquaintance of such men. 
 
 Taylor read a part of a letter from Clare, to whom he 
 
92 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 had lately sent Wordsworth's poems, in which he says : 
 " I like Wordsworth better than Crabbe. I can read the 
 one a second time over with added pleasure, but I am 
 disgusted with the other after it has been once read. 
 Still Wordsworth's nursery ballads inspire me with an 
 uncontrollable itch of parodying them ; I did ease 
 myself by burlesquing one, which you shall have in my 
 next." The Opium-Eater wondered that he should 
 think of comparing Wordsworth and Crabbe together, 
 who had not one thing in common in their writings. 
 Wordsworth sought to hallow and ennoble every subject 
 on which he touched, while Crabbe was anything but a 
 poet. His pretensions to poetry were not nothing, 
 merely, but if they were to be represented algebraically, 
 the negative sign must be prefixed. All his labours and 
 endeavours were unpoetical. Instead of raising and 
 elevating his subjects, he did all he could to make them 
 flat and commonplace, to disrobe them of the garb in 
 which imagination would clothe them, and to bring them 
 down as low as, or even to debase them lower than, the 
 standard of common life. Poetry could no longer exist 
 if cultivated only by such writers as Crabbe. Words- 
 worth's aim is entirely the reverse of this : as to him 
 Clare seemed to fall into the general error, that he wrote 
 on subjects only fit for the nursery, and that his thoughts 
 and language were low and vulgar. " Now," says the 
 Opium-Eater, "I will not take upon me generally to 
 assert that no single low thought or expression occurs ; 
 but I will say that I do not recollect any instance ; and 
 that most of the passages usually quoted as instances of 
 this, are themselves proofs of the direct contrary. And 
 the objection is generally made by persons of common, 
 low minds, who have not wisdom to perceive or 
 sympathy to feel the depth of his thoughts. He is 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 93 
 
 accused of being too simple, when in fact he is too wise 
 and too abstruse for them. He is thought to skim the 
 surface while in truth he goes very deeply into the 
 elements of our nature, too far indeed for many to 
 follow him. People in general do not sufficiently attend 
 to the principles upon which they act; and Words- 
 worth's apparent simplicity arises in a great degree 
 from his acquaintance with the depths of the human 
 heart and the secret springs that regulate and influence 
 human feelings, thoughts, and actions. Thousands of 
 persons will object to passages in Wordsworth because 
 they do not understand the principles on which they 
 themselves act, and on a knowledge of which the passage 
 in question will^ depend, yet the same people will speak 
 and act in other matters, though they do not themselves 
 know it, upon the very same principle in the human 
 mind upon which depends the expression they object 
 to : and this may be proved to demonstration in various 
 instances of their daily and hourly conduct How many 
 object to the simple and affecting ballad of the child at 
 the tomb of its brother saying: 'Nay, we are seven.' 
 Yet how deep must a man have gone below the thoughts 
 of the generality, before he could have written such a 
 ballad ! It contains the height of the moral sublime. 
 Others dislike the description of the oxen, 'forty 
 feeding like one.' Yet it seems most appropriately to 
 convey the idea of the sameness and the continuity 
 of employment of the whole herd. The ballad of the 
 female beggar, too, has been called foolish. 
 
 She had a tall man's height or more, 
 No bomiet screened her from the heat, 
 
 A long drab-coloured cloak she wore, 
 A mantle reaching to her feet. 
 
 What other dress she had I could not know, 
 
 Only she wore a cap that was as white as snow. 
 
94 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 In all my walks thro' field or town, 
 
 Such figure had I never seen : 
 Her face was of Egyptian brown ; 
 
 Fit person was she for a queen, 
 To head those antient Amazonian files, 
 Or ruling bandifs wife among the Grecian isles. 
 
 The last two lines are particularly grand and majestfc." 
 Taylor then noticed that *' what other dress she had I 
 could not know," was a botch ; it was unnecessary, and 
 set the reader's fancy rambling upon a point no ways 
 material. The Opium-Eater admitted this, and observed 
 that Wordsworth had a great difficulty in rhyming, and 
 this obliged him many times to insert needless exple- 
 tive words and sentences. Taylor thought that it was not 
 so much the simplicity of the language as the lowness of 
 the thought and the want of selection in the subjects 
 that led people to depreciate Wordsworth's merit. 
 The Opium-Eater upon this observed that the principal 
 complaints he had heard made against Wordsworth 
 were that his style was mean and low, and this re- 
 minded him of an observation which had occurred to 
 him upon the subject of style, which he believed had 
 never before been remarked in any book, nor indeed 
 did he observe any indication of its even having been 
 noticed, save from one German word which seemed to 
 point at the distinction. It had been supposed that 
 thoughts and words had some necessary, immediate, 
 and close correlation to each other ; that words were 
 the mere types and impressions of thoughts ; that the 
 one were the pictures of the other ; and indeed it had 
 been said that if a person has thoughts, he also has 
 necessarily suitable and commensurate expressions for 
 those thoughts given him at the same time, and may 
 at once and without difficulty give utterance to his 
 ideas in words. This seemed to the Opium-Eater not 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 95 
 
 strictly correct ; he thought the phraseology, " That 
 words are the dress in which thoughts appear," ex- 
 pressed the truth much more nearly than saying or 
 implying that words expressed the actual thoughts 
 themselves. He intended to touch upon and illustrate 
 this subject in the first of the series of letters he was 
 about to write for the London Magazine, * and which 
 would begin with the subject of composition. It 
 seemed to him that independently of the expression in 
 which a thought was clothed, and as the substratum 
 or groundwork supporting such expression, there would 
 be found, upon analysis and separation of the different 
 accidentalities of the idea, a simple plain and abstract 
 thought, feeling, or conception ; that such thoughts, 
 etc., were common to all men, but some did and some 
 did not notice, cultivate, encourage, and express them. 
 And the mode in which abstract thought was dressed 
 ,up, the expression, figure, trope, or instance which was 
 brought forward as representing, or rather expounding 
 it to others, was an essentially different thing from the 
 thought itself A good thought might be very ill 
 expressed. On the other hand, a poor or weak con- 
 ception might be so adorned by the rich garb or 
 exponential dress or image in which it was conveyed, 
 that it should appear attractive, and its emptiness might 
 thus escape unnoticed. This distinction between 
 thought and the garb in which it was presented was 
 not sufficiently attended to. The general complaint 
 made against Wordsworth's poetry was that its style 
 was low and mean, brought from the vulgar ranks of 
 life, and deficient in interest, and childish. Now it might 
 
 * The "Letters to a Young Man whose Education has been 
 Neglected ; " in which, however, the relation of thought and lan- 
 guage is not discussed. 
 
96 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 be safely affirmed of Wordsworth's phraseology that it 
 is anything but mean — there is scarcely a mean word 
 that occurs in it. It is true that he often uses words in 
 their original and intense sense, where in common use 
 they have a slighter signification ; as in the instance of 
 the word trouble, in where it is employed in its original 
 and scriptural sense for great tribulation or anxiety, and 
 not, as in common conversation, for a lighter or more 
 transient inquietude, or slight molestation. But generally, 
 although his subject lead him to treat of the inferior 
 ranks of life, and to make those who walk in them 
 speak in their own peculiar manner and course of thought 
 and sentiment, yet he never admits their colloquialisms, 
 bad English, or vulgarities. Their diction is simple, but 
 pure and sensible, so that, so far as Wordsworth's style, 
 properly so called, is concerned, his detractors are 
 entirely in the wrong. Their complaint is then, in point 
 of fact, though they may not know it, against his 
 thoughts, not their garb. The former of these is 
 majestic, grand and only to be properly appreciated by 
 kindred spirits to his own. 
 
 At this part of the conversation (for on leaving Taylor 
 it was continued while I walked home with the Opium- 
 Eater), we had arrived at his lodging, where I took leave 
 of him about twelve o'clock. He had, however, said 
 nearly the whole of what he had to observe upon this 
 interesting subject. I should not omit to notice that 
 the Opium-Eater found throughout the whole of French 
 literature an universal weakness and poverty of thought, 
 and that when the French writers wished to be more 
 than usually grand, they loaded their thoughts with 
 glittering and tinsel expressions, but their conceptions 
 are poor, low, and imbecile. He inquired whether 
 Taylor knew if " B " in Dryden's " Satires of Mac- 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 97 
 
 Flecknoe "* meant Burnet the historian of his own times 
 — for the character there given was singularly applicable 
 to Burnet. The Opium-Eater had mentioned to me a 
 short time since his astonishment at the high opinion 
 which seemed to be entertained generally of Burns. 
 He allowed him ability of a particular description, some 
 fancy, much power of catching and expressing generous 
 sentiments in free and easy language, but nothing that 
 could entitle him to rank high as a great poet. His 
 " Mary in Heaven " was false in sentiment, and very 
 commonplace and factitious. His " Cotter's Saturday 
 Night" had nothing of the high poet in it, and the 
 subject was suggested by a poem of Fergusson's, the 
 thoughts in it were common to most persons, and there 
 was nothing great in the manner of treating them. His 
 " Tarn o' Shanter " was one of his best works, but that 
 has been greatly over-praised. 
 
 zStk December, 1821. — The Opium-Eater was asked 
 by Taylor about his college and Oxford, and whether 
 he had taken a degree there. He said that he had not, 
 and the circumstances were rather peculiar ; and, as 
 reports contrary to the real state of the case had got 
 abroad, he would state the transactions exactly as they 
 occurred. The college to which he went was Worcester 
 College. At that time it was in very bad repute. 
 There were no very good tutors, and the young men 
 there were greatly low in point of attainment, and very 
 free and irregular in their habits, owing to the lax 
 discipline that prevailed. As soon as the Opium-Eater 
 arrived there, he was invited by many of the men of his 
 
 * There must be some mistake in Woodhouse's report. No 
 
 " B " is introduced into " Mac-Flecknoe," nor is^Burnet alluded 
 
 to. He Is satirized as the Buzzard in "The Hind and the 
 Panther." 
 
 H 
 
98 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 own standing to their parties, which he joined, but he 
 found them to be a drinking, rattling set, whose conver- 
 sation was juvenile, commonplace, and quite unintellec- 
 tual. He invited them once or twice in return, and then 
 dropped the intercourse, and in a short time he came to 
 be looked upon as a strange being who associated with 
 no one, and he was left to himself, and to do in fact just 
 as he pleased. Upon some occasion it was necessary 
 that a declamation should be written and delivered in 
 Latin by some one of his college, and it fell to him to 
 do it. He accordingly composed and delivered the 
 oration, and as he had written it with some care, and 
 was a tolerable master of the language, it excited 
 considerable attention. These things were generally 
 passed by without much notice ; but he could perceive 
 by the interest which was taken while he was declaiming, 
 and by the buzzing and whispering, that it was much 
 better than had been expected, and that it had caused 
 some sensation in the auditors. Immediately many 
 persons high in the University came up, shook him by 
 the hand, and congratulated him. Soon after this he 
 found himself noticed by the head of the college, and 
 several of the students ; he received invitations, and soon 
 discovered that all the University men were not of the 
 same description as those with whom he had at first 
 associated. His tutor also paid much attention to 
 him, and excited him to try for honours. This he 
 refused to do. In fact, from what he saw of the exami- 
 nations at Oxford, he looked upon them as so much a 
 farce, and so unfair a standard to try a person's general 
 ability and proficiency, that he had determined not to 
 attempt to gain distinction or even to take a degree, 
 which to his mind could convey no honour worth 
 seeking for. His intention at this time was to travel in 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 99 
 
 Germany, and he should not have wished even to belong 
 to the college, but because the name of having been of 
 Oxford would have been of service and an introduction 
 to him abroad as a scholar. His purpose was merely to 
 matriculate and reside there for a time, but many 
 persons incited him to try for honours. A friend of his 
 (named Millar) offered also himself to try for honours, 
 if the Opium-Eater would go up also with him, and his 
 tutor (of the name of Jones) was particularly anxious 
 that he should do so, thinking probably that it would be 
 of great service to himself to have the credit of turning 
 out two scholars from that college who should have 
 distinguished themselves. It was his wish to serve his 
 tutor that principally weighed with the Opium-Eater to 
 consent. Another inducement was an order that had 
 been just issued that the answers in the Greek exami- 
 nation should be given in Greek. Here there seemed 
 something to be done. He determined instead of giving 
 in any particular books, to give up Greek literature 
 generally, and he felt conscious of going through the 
 examination triumphantly. He read (as it is termed) 
 very hard for two months before the examination. But 
 about a week before it was to take place, the order for 
 giving in the answers in the Greek examinations in that 
 language was rescinded, and it was directed that they 
 should be given in English. This completely destroyed 
 all stimulus in the Opium-Eater's mind ; he no longer 
 cared to go through an examination which would only 
 show that he in common with others had acquired 
 knowledge of a particular description, but would not 
 leave him room to show his general proficiency. He 
 thought of declining to go up, and it was only the 
 earnest wishes of his friend Millar and his tutor that 
 induced him so to do. He entertained a contempt for 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 the general acquirements of his examiners, for the sort 
 of examination to be gone through, and especially for 
 that trickery in the examiners of trying students in some 
 particularly difficult passages or points in which they 
 would make themselves perfectly at home, without any 
 attempt to ascertain the real ability of the person under 
 examination in the language. He had, for instance, 
 studied Aristotle's " Organon " throughout, and he 
 meant to have given up that book in logic. He had had 
 not merely to master the construction of the language, 
 and to understand the meaning of the author, but also, 
 such was the condensation and depth of the matter, to 
 think deeply and ponder over every passage, and almost 
 every word, so as to imbue himself with the wisdom of 
 the author. Now there was in use in Oxford a manual 
 of Aristotle, and selection of parts of him, which was 
 generally taken in the examination, and, as he was 
 pretty confident that his examiners had never looked 
 into the large work itself as he had done, he felt sure that 
 though they would pretend to examine him from the large 
 book, they would in fact confine themselves to such 
 parts of it as were contained in this manual. Again, 
 they would frequently put before the student particular 
 parts of the Greek tragedians which were manifestly 
 corrupt, or at best only to be made sense of by some 
 strained interpretations of scholiasts and commentators. 
 These he had never thought it worth his while to attend 
 to. The Agamemnon of .(Eschylus was one of these, and 
 he felt little doubt that he should have this put into his 
 hands by the examiners. Had he been ever so well 
 prepared in this respect the utmost his knowledge 
 would have amounted to would be what a great 
 number of people had written and conjectured upon 
 the difficult passages. He counted the lines of the 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. lOI 
 
 play, and reckoned the number of minutes to the 
 examination, and he found that there would not be 
 time even to read the play itself properly through. 
 This circumstance, and the thought of the possibility 
 of failing, and in a matter of so little real import- 
 ance, and which went so very little way as a fair 
 trial of ability, yet more disinclined him to the 
 examination. 
 
 The first day of the examination, which was merely in 
 Latin, happened to be on a Saturday. It is the custom 
 to take five or six persons a day. On the average they 
 last two hours each person, but the examiners sometimes 
 bestow more upon the examination of one and less upon 
 that of others. The Opium-Eater underwent a very 
 long examination. He was first put to translate Latin 
 into English, and afterwards to render English at sight 
 into Latin. And he could perceive from the whispers, 
 the silence, and various other indications, that he was 
 considered a proficient, and was likely to pass a splendid 
 examination. This was intimated to him afterwards 
 from various quarters. On Monday he was to be 
 examined in Greek. But all his contempt for his 
 examiners, his thought of the possibility of failing from 
 the unfair mode of examination (as though a lover of 
 Shakespeare should be tried exclusively by his intimate 
 acquaintance with the difficult and corrupt passages of 
 the " Pericles " or " Titus Andronicus "), and the con- 
 viction that from the alteration in the language in which 
 the answers in the Greek examinations were to be given, 
 no opportunities of distinguishing himself was afforded, 
 came upon him at once. On the Sunday morning he 
 left Oxford, and has never been in the place since except 
 upon one occasion for about half-an-hour. When the 
 time came he was non inventus. Many different reports 
 
102 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 were abroad on the subject,* which he had heard himself. 
 A lady once archly said to him, "I have heard of 
 such a thing, Mr. de Quincey, as a person's heart failing 
 him." 
 
 Others said that he was disgusted at the mode of 
 examination and the ignorance of the examiners, and 
 that he declined honours because he felt that to tmdergo 
 such examinations could confer no honour. " And this," 
 observed Taylor, •' is near the truth, and the matter may 
 be left , with this impression." " However," said the 
 Opium-Eater, " I have stated exactly how the matter 
 was, and my opinion of Oxford examinations is just as 
 it used to be." — Ex relat. J. T. 
 
 2<)tk December, 1821. — This evening I saw the Opium- 
 Eater into the mail ; he was about to return to West- 
 moreland. 
 
 Allan Cunningham had gone off by another coach for 
 the North the same evening. It was a subject of regret 
 to both that they had not travelled together. 
 
 The Opium-Eater always disliked in modern compo- 
 sition what is termed Ciceronian Latin — that style in 
 which twenty or thirty words are used to express what 
 might be as well or better given in five or ten. The 
 declamation he gave at Oxford was framed more after 
 the style of Caesar in his " Commentaries " than after 
 
 * Mr. Grinfield, De Quincey's early friend, at this time a 
 member of Lincoln College, says : " I rather incline to believe that 
 he had some distrust of his own presence of mind, feeling that his 
 intellect was somewhat impatient of grappling with the smaller 
 points which are demanded in a university examinatipn." Dr. 
 Goodenough, of Christ Church, who was one of the examiners, 
 declared to a member of Worcester College : " You have sent us 
 the cleverest man I ever met with ; if his vivA voce examination 
 to-morrow correspond with what he has done to-day, he will carry 
 everything before him." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. IC3 
 
 that of Cicero. It was studiously clear, simple, and 
 short ; and it was probably the novelty of avoiding all 
 floridness in the composition that caused it to excite so 
 much notice. 
 
 NOTE ON RICHARD WOODHOUSE. 
 
 Richard Woodhouse, barrister of the Temple, himself wrote nothing for 
 publication, but mingled with the brilliant literary circle which, about the 
 year 1820, gathered around Messrs. Taylor and Hessey, publishers of the 
 London Magazine. To Keats in particular he was devotedly attached : 
 and, bating some unjust though not unaccountable prejudice against Leigh 
 Hunt, he may be reckoned the most judicious as well as the kindest of his 
 friends. His affection for the unfortunate poet and compassion for his 
 blighted life were expressed with a grave and touching manliness : and to 
 him were the heart-rending communications of Severn from Italy most 
 commonly addressed. The proofs of these facts have unhappily perished 
 in the conflagration which in 1883 destroyed the premises of the publishers 
 of this series. One precious volume escaped, the note-book, which 
 establishes, that from September to December, 1821, Woodhouse enjoyed 
 De Quincey's intimacy and recorded his conversation. It is highly to his 
 credit that he should have so quickly discerned the splendour of this new 
 light, which to the world at large had shone only in a single magazine 
 article. His was no undiscriminating hero-worship, but the same intelli- 
 gent recognition of genius which he had already manifested in his loyal 
 devotion to Keats. Nor can his fidelity as a reporter have been inferior to 
 his perception as a crilic. The reader of his notes will have no difficulty 
 in distinguishing all the characteristics of De Quincey's style as a writer, 
 and' no less the peculiarities of his conversation as indicated by Carlyle, 
 Hill Burton, Mrs. Gordon, and others who have not, like Woodhouse, 
 afforded us the materials for our own judgment. We seem conscious of 
 the silvery accents, the courteous deference, the exquisitely refined phrase- 
 ology, the subdued yet almost exaggerated earnestness, the circumstantiality 
 and subtlety, the copious flow of polished speech never lapsing into twaddle 
 or swelling into harangue, which, if they could not wield a democracy, 
 could hold a half-astonished, half- amused aristocracy of intellect by a spell 
 like the Ancient Mariner's. The reader's imagination must indeed be 
 enlisted to fill up some portions of this picture impaired by the absence of 
 the speaker and the inevitable brevity of the reporter. But none can 
 question that the actual discoursing De Quincey is brought nearer to us 
 than ever before, and that his discourse is the counterpart of his writings. — 
 Dr. Garnett's Introduction to the " Confessions" 
 
104 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 A SOUVENIR OF OXFORD DAYS. 
 
 I HAVE been able to rescue a relic of great interest 
 concerning a period of which we know so little in De 
 Quincey's career — his college days. 
 
 The Latin theme here given was found among the 
 papers of the late Dr. Goodenough of Christchurch, who 
 was one of De Quincey's examiners at Worcester 
 College, and had expressed a high opinion of his ability 
 as recorded in the preceding " Notes of Conversations." 
 
 Whether this theme is the "declamation " specially 
 referred to by Richard Woodhouse, or some other college 
 exercise, is matter of doubt. The original is written on 
 a leaf of post quarto in the beautifully clear handwriting 
 of De Quincey. In earlier days this was larger and much 
 more sloping than in middle and later life. The mature 
 style is shown in the facsimiles given of two " unpublished 
 letters " in this volume. 
 
 The leaf is endorsed " Quincey," apparently in the 
 handwriting of Dr. Goodenough. 
 
 For the English rendering I am indebted to the 
 courtesy of Dr. R. Garnett, the Keeper of the Printed 
 Books at the British Museum. 
 
 " Non id, quod magnum est, pulchrum est ; sed, quod pulchrum, 
 
 magnum." 
 
 Velle maxima obstacula, quae ansibus obstant, superare 
 ct per scipsum jurare esse superaturum — non est nisi 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 10$ 
 
 magni ; refugit enim ab omni arduo minoris animi timida 
 imbecillitas : at plerumque in consiliis nefariis maxima 
 oriuntur obstacula ; unde non raro, in factis maxima 
 facinorosis, animi emicuit lethalis splendor populis in- 
 cutiens terrorem ; et aliquando summa anima in facinore 
 maximo luride subridens exultavit : hinc illustrium aliquot 
 praedonum fulgente scelere oculi posteriorum adhuc 
 perstringuntur. Non est ergo necesse magnum esse 
 pulchrum. 
 
 Sed patet omne pulchrum esse necessario magnum : 
 vera enim virtus ortum habet ex ingenita vi mentis qua 
 ad altius quiddam affectandum incitatur, ideoque magna 
 est in origine ; — posita est autem maxima ex parte in 
 rigida effrasnati impetus disciplina (quae est maximum 
 imperium) et est ideo magna in seipsa ; finem vero 
 assequitur in cultores suos naturae alicui sublimiori 
 affines efficiendo, et magnam ergo se prsestat in effectu. 
 
 Quamvis igitur plerique, cum non sint ipsi magni, verje 
 magnitudinis fines saepe prave dijudicirint et hinc gestis 
 multis notissimisfalsum nomen impresserint, — sunt tamen 
 aliquot nefanda facta quae revera sunt magna, nulla vero 
 evidenter pulchra quae non simul magna. 
 
 \translation:\ 
 
 " A thing is not fine because it is great, but is great because it is 
 fine. (Or, less literally, Merit, not magnitude, is the measure of 
 greatness.") 
 
 The desire to overcome the greatest obstacles which 
 impede adventurous undertakings, and the resolution of 
 overcoming them by one's own unaided efforts, are the 
 property of nothing less than greatness ; for the timid 
 weakness of an inferior mind recoils from whatsoever is 
 arduous. But the greatest obstacles commonly arise in 
 the execution of nefarious designs ; whence not unfre- 
 
I06 , THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 quently in deeds of the greatest turpitude a deadly- 
 splendour has shone forth from the mind striking terror 
 into the nations, and sometimes an elevated soul has 
 exulted with a lurid smile in the commission of some 
 peculiarly atrocious action : insomuch that the eyes of 
 posterity are yet held spellbound by the dazzling crimes 
 of some illustrious robbers. A great action, therefore, is 
 not necessarily a fine action. 
 
 But whatsoever is fine is necessarily also great ; for 
 true Virtue has her birth in that innate force of the mind 
 whereby she is incited to aim at something yet higher, 
 and therefore is great in her origin : but also chiefly 
 consists in the rigid restraint of unbridled impulse (which 
 is the greatest of all dominion), and is therefore great in 
 herself; but attains her end in rendering her votaries 
 akin to some more exalted Nature, and therefore proves 
 her greatness by the effects which she produces. 
 
 Although, therefore, the mass of men, not being them- 
 selves partakers of greatness, have often m.isconstrued 
 the definition of true glory, and hence have misnamed 
 many most celebrated actions — yet there are some 
 wicked deeds that may truly be termed great ; but there 
 are no manifestly fine actions that are not at the same 
 time great also. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 
 
 DR. COTTON ON THE OXFORD LIFE. 
 
 [In a lengthy article published in the Quarterly 
 Review, vol. no (1861), there occurs the annexed 
 passage, concerning which the reviewer observes : — "We 
 are indebted for the following particulars to the kindness 
 of Dr. Cotton, the Provost of Worcester College."] 
 
 Gf his Oxford life he has left us few memorials. He 
 appears to have resided there from 1803 to 1808 ; that 
 is, from his eighteenth year to his twenty-third. But of 
 his own obligations to that University he says not one 
 syllable. Whether he read or whether he idled we are 
 left to conjecture. And this is the more singular, because 
 the two favourite pursuits of De Quincey are also the 
 studies most prized in the University of Oxford, namely 
 elegant scholarship and metaphysics. The modern 
 examination system .also was introduced during these 
 years, and we should have been glad to hear what De 
 Quincey thought of the reform, and wha,t he heard said 
 about it among older men than himself But his Oxford 
 life is an unwritten chapter of the Autobiography. 
 
 It is curious indeed that it should be so ; his career 
 at Oxford having been, according to the testimony of 
 contemporaries, highly characteristic of the man, and 
 one which nobody who took the public into his con- 
 fidence so freely as De Quincey did, need have shrunk 
 from describing. He was admitted a member of 
 Worcester College, and matriculated on the 17th of 
 
I08 THOMAS DE quincey: 
 
 December, 1803 ; and his name remained upon the 
 college books for seven years, being removed from them 
 on the iSthof December, 18 10. During the period of 
 his residence he was generally known as a quiet and 
 studious man. He did not frequent wine parties, though 
 he did not abstain from wine ; and he devoted himself 
 principally to the society ot a German named Schwartz- 
 burg, who is said to have taught him Hebrew. He was 
 remarkable, even in those days, for his rare conversa- 
 tional powers, and for his extraordinary stock of infor- 
 mation upon every subject that was started. There 
 were men, it would appear, among his contemporaries 
 who were capable of appreciating him ; and they all 
 agreed that De Quincey was a man of singular genius 
 as well as the most varied talents. His knowledge of 
 Latin and Greek was not confined to those few standard 
 authors with which even good scholars are, or were, 
 accustomed to content themselves. He was master of 
 the ancient literature ; of all of it, at least, which belongs 
 to what is called pure literature. It appears that he 
 brought this knowledge up to Oxford with him ; and 
 that his university studies were directed almost wholly 
 to the ancient philosophy, varied by occasional excur- 
 sions into German literature and metaphysics, which 
 he loved to compare with those of Greece and Rome. 
 His knowledge of all these subjects is said to have been 
 really sound ; and there can no doubt that he was 
 capable of reproducing it in the most brilliant and 
 imposing forms. It was predicted, accordingly, by all 
 who knew him, that he would pass a memorable exam- 
 ination ; and so indeed he did, though the issue was a 
 somewhat different one from what his admirers had 
 anticipated. The class-list had lately been instituted ; 
 and there seems no reason to doubt that, had De 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 109 
 
 Quincey's mind been rather more regularly trained, he 
 would have taken a first-class as easily as other men 
 take a common degree. But his reading had never 
 been conducted upon that system which the Oxford 
 examinations, essentially and very properly intended 
 for men of average abilities, render almost incumbent 
 upon every candidate for the highest honours. De 
 Quincey seems to have felt that he was deficient in that 
 perfect mastery of the minuter details of logic, ethics, 
 and rhetoric, which the practice of the schools demanded. 
 With the leading principles of the Aristotelian system 
 he was evidently quite intimate. But he apparenily 
 distrusted his own fitness to undergo a searching oral 
 examination in these subjects, for which a minute 
 acquaintance with scientific terminology, and with the 
 finest distinctions they involve, is thought to be essential. 
 The event was unfortunate, though so agreeable to De 
 Quincey's character that it might have been foreseen by 
 his associates, as by one of them it really was. The 
 important moment arrived, and De Quincey went 
 through the first day's examination, which was con- 
 ducted upon paper, and at that time consisted almost 
 exclusively of scholarship, history, and whatever might 
 be comprehended under the title of classical literature. 
 On the evening of that day Mr. Goodenough of Christ- 
 church, who was one of the examiners, went down to a 
 gentleman, then resident at Worcester College and well 
 acquainted with De Quincey, and said to him, "You 
 have sent us to-day the cleverest man I ever met with ; 
 if his vivd voce examination to-morrow correspond with 
 what he has done in writing he will carry everything 
 before him." To this his friend made answer that he 
 feared De Quincey's viv& voce would be comparatively 
 imperfect, even if he presented himself for examination. 
 
no THOMAS DE QUINCEV : 
 
 which he rather doubted. The event justified his 
 answer. That night De Quincey packed up his things 
 and wallced away from Oxford ; never, as far as we can 
 ascertain, to return to it. Whether this distrust of 
 himself was well founded, or whether it arose from the 
 depression by which his indulgence in opium was invari- 
 ably followed, we cannot tell. So early even as his 
 Oxford days, De Quincey, we are told, was incapable 
 of steady application without large doses of opium. He 
 had taken a large dose on the morning of his paper work, 
 and the re-action that followed in the evening would, 
 of course, aggravate his apprehensions of the morrow. 
 Be that as it may, he fairly took to his heels, and so 
 lost the chance, which, with every drawback, must have 
 been an extremely good one, of figuring in the same 
 class-list with Sir Robert Peel, who passed his exami- 
 nation in Michaelmas, 1 808, which was, no doubt, the 
 era of De Quincey's singular catastrophe. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. Ill 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 
 GLASGOW PERIOD. 
 
 By COLIN RAE-BROWN, 
 
 At various times, and in several publications — issued 
 within the last ten or twelve years — incorrect statements 
 have appeared regarding De Quincey's last visit to 
 Glasgow.* It is now high time that a faithful record 
 of it (so far, at least, as the cause and date of it goes) 
 should be plainly set forth ; and the following details 
 are made up from notes still in my possession. 
 
 At the close of 1846, the projectors of the North 
 British Daily Mail offered me an engagement as 
 business manager of the contemplated "First Scottish 
 Daily." I accepted the offer, and entered upon my 
 duties immediately. Amongst the first of the arrange- 
 ments I set about was that of an office in Edinburgh. 
 By this time, the proprietors of the Mail had purchased 
 the copyright of Tait's Magazine, and it was considered 
 most advisable to secure the continued services of De 
 
 * Misled by a printer's error— the substitution of " 1848 " for 
 "the close of 1846"— Dr. Japp, in his 1890 edition (Hogg: 
 London) of " De Quincey's Life and Writings," says : — " De 
 Quincey was again in Glasgow in 1848." Dr. Japp's previous 
 statement (in his 1887 edition of the same work) was quite correct, 
 viz. : — " He returned (from Glasgow) to Lasswade in the end of 
 1847, and lived there without intermission till the beginning 
 of 1852." 
 
112 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Quincey as a leading contributor, and also to endeavour 
 to get him to reside in Glasgow — for a time — so that 
 he might be closely identiiied with the " future " of the 
 well-known Whig-Radical organ. I was accordingly 
 instructed to arrange for a meeting with De Quincey 
 in Edinburgh, and to offer him certain terms re contri- 
 butions to Tait, and occasional special articles for the 
 Mail. That meeting took place early in December, 
 
 1846. I may here mention that Tait was transferred 
 to Glasgow during the month just mentioned, and that 
 the first issue in the " Second City " was that of January, 
 
 1847. In order to assist in the production of the first 
 " Sanct Mungo " number, De Quincey reached Glasgow 
 in the course of the preceding month. The Mail did 
 not appear till the 14th of April, 1847. De Quincey 
 at first hesitated a good deal, but in the end agreed to 
 the terms proposed ; while he stipulated, nevertheless, 
 that his stay in Glasgow was not to exceed six months, 
 and that apartments of a modest kind could be secured 
 for him at the higftest altitude possible in the northern 
 part of the city. " I had some painful experiences," 
 he went on to say, "of life in Glasgow several years 
 ago, when I was victimised to within an inch of my life 
 by the sulphuretted hydrogen — or some such noxious 
 exhalation — which was then discharged into the atmo- 
 sphere by the so-called ' Secret Works ' at the ' Town- 
 head.' But if I could get tidy apartments not very far 
 from this objectionable manufactory, the great length 
 of the chimney-stack would allow the wind to carry the 
 pestilential smoke quite over and away from me." I 
 promised to set inquiries on foot as to suitable accom- 
 modation in the locality indicated, and also to let him 
 know the result by an early post. Throughout the 
 interview — it was my first meeting with him — I had 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. II 3 
 
 been more closely engaged in intently studying the 
 individual than in listening to his mildly expressed 
 denunciations of the " Glasgow vapours." If I describe 
 him as being, physically, of the type of Cardinal 
 Manning, I am giving something nearly akin to a true 
 flesh and blood portraiture. De Quincey stood some- 
 where about five feet or thereby, and was very sparsely 
 built ; while the pale and delicately transparent brow 
 and cheek seemed almost ethereal ; but when the latter 
 were visited, as they often were during conversation, by 
 a slight roseate tinge, it rendered the ever mobile and 
 intelligent face more interesting still. Prior to this 
 interview, I had formed no idea whatever of the 
 " English opium-eater " in the matter of physique. 
 Nevertheless, with such men as Christopher North and 
 other stalwart Edinburgh celebrities of the day in my 
 mind's eye, I never for one moment imagined that the 
 man now beginning to "bulk forth" so largely in the 
 intellectual world would turn out to be of such diminu- 
 tive stature and frail construction. But what most 
 riveted my attention to the speaker was the refinement 
 which characterised every action and every expression, 
 combined with an exactitude of pronunciation which 
 was the very reverse of pedantic. His extreme gentle- 
 ness of manner, almost that of a retiring yet high-bred 
 child, made me at once feel — Here is the very essence 
 of charity and good-will to his fellow-man. I was 
 charmed with my reception, no less than with the 
 cordial politeness of his gracious " Good-bye," and truly 
 went on my homeward way rejoicing. 
 
 Determined to act up to his request in the matter ot 
 apartments, I set about the search personally, and was 
 able in the course of a few days to inform De Quincey 
 that I had secured exactly what he wanted in the upper 
 
 I 
 
1 14 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 flat of a tenement in the " Rottenrow," a quiet, humble 
 thoroughfare in the highest quarter of Glasgow, exactly 
 at the point he had indicated, and so situated that the 
 aforesaid " noxious vapours " would be blown quite over 
 and beyond the spot. Then I was able to add that the 
 mother-in-law of the tenant, a quiet, fairly-well educated 
 widow, of some sixty years of age, seemed to keep house 
 in a manner that might be termed sci'upulously clean. 
 Within a week after I had so written, De Quincey was 
 comfortably deposited under the care of Mrs. Tosh, and 
 (save for its enforced short duration) neither he nor I 
 had ever any occasion to regret the selection of his 
 whilom domicile (now designated " Dean Place "). 
 
 We had scarcely been seated at a comfortable tea 
 on the evening of his arrival when he inquired of me 
 whether the landlady's surname, " Tosh," was not also 
 used as a familiar Scottish adjective. " I cannot re- 
 member its precise significance in the least, but it will, 
 as you West Country people say, keep ' running through 
 my head.' " 
 
 " No landlady," I replied, " could have been more 
 appropriately named. ' Tosh ' is a very common Doric 
 expression for ' neat, clean, tidy, etc.,' and your worthy 
 dame is all that and something more." 
 
 The printing-office and the editorial chambers of the 
 Mail and Tait were situated at a distance of about a 
 mile from De Quincey's lodgings, and we had very 
 often to despatch messengers there for delayed " copy." 
 He was in the habit of bringing such down to town in 
 detached portions, a practice which, joined to his some- 
 what irregular habits of rising, frequently kept half-set 
 articles standing and printers idle. On one occasion — 
 it was close on the 28th of the month, the date when 
 the following month's magazine was supposed to be 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 11$ 
 
 ready for the wholesale houses in London and Edin- 
 burgh — a most important article of De Quincey's had 
 been partially set up, and our boy-messenger had twice 
 returned from the " Rottenrow " with the same message 
 from the landlady, "the old gentleman had no got 'oot 
 o' his bedroom yet!" The editor was dreadfully put 
 about. Coming into my room, he said, " I wish you 
 would drive up and see De Quincey about the remaining 
 copy. You are the only one that seems to have much 
 influence with him. I am absolutely getting to my 
 wit's end, as we must go to press some time to-night." 
 I sent for a cab and drove up to the "Rottenrow" 
 lodgings. As I had expected (having come to know 
 about the "opium-eating"), I found, on entering De 
 Quincey's room, that he was either uncommonly sound 
 asleep or in a state of stupor. He lay stretched out on 
 the heathrug before the parlour fire-grate (his bedroom 
 entering off that apartment), clad in an old dressing- 
 gown, with no stockings on his feet, and merely a pair 
 of thin, loose slippers over his toes. " I'm sure the puir 
 body's deid ! " the landlady exclaimed, as I bent down 
 to ascertain whether he was really still alive. An exami- 
 nation, which did not occupy more than five seconds, 
 showed me that he breathed heavily, and I was able to 
 assure the worthy old woman that all would be right 
 when he awoke ; at the same time I insisted that she 
 should not, as she had proposed, " dash cauld water on 
 his face," but leave him to awake naturally. Looking 
 about amongst his scattered books and papers on a 
 small side table, I soon discovered the "tail of the 
 copy " I was in search of, neatly tied up with red tape, 
 and addressed to the "Editor of Taifs Magazine" 
 Careless to slovenliness in many things, especially in re- 
 gard to bodily attire, he was scrupulously exact in others, 
 
 I 2 
 
Il6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 As I was leaving the lodgings Mrs. Tosh said, in a 
 half-whisper, "There maun surely be somethin' raaly 
 wrang wi' my lodger. He doesna eat as muckle in a 
 week as my wee oo (grandson) eats in a day. D'ye 
 think he's in his richt mind .' " Having thoroughly 
 assured her as to the perfect sanity of " Mr. Quinsey," 
 as she termed him, I hurriedly drove away with the 
 much-desired copy. 
 
 The following day — a Wednesday, I think — was one 
 of those on which De Quincey and I generally partook 
 of a mild lunch at the " Rose Tavern," in Argyll Street, 
 still the leading thorougfare of the business part of 
 Glasgow. From whatever cause, he never once alluded 
 to the "copy" which I had taken away, nor to the 
 inconvenience which delay had caused us. Afraid of 
 hurting susceptibilities which I knew were of a very 
 tender nature, I maintained a discreet silence on the 
 subject. On that occasion our conversation was directed 
 to a new edition of Burns (in de luxe form) which had 
 just been announced. " Ah ! " De Quincey remarked, 
 while his eyes visibly dilated, " the Ayrshire Colossus is 
 still expanding outward and upward, in spite of all his 
 detractors. If some of my Lake friends had had more 
 critical insight, or more liberality, their immature de- 
 liverances on the achievements and future position of 
 our Ayrshire poet would have savoured more of the 
 characteristics of genuine criticism and true prophecy." 
 
 This remark was one of the few which I took the 
 liberty of making more than "a mental note of." 
 "Burns-worship" was then becoming one of my great 
 hobbies. Of another subject of conversation that day 
 I also made a brief memorandum. It had reference to 
 a placard recently put up on the gates of one of the 
 largest workshops in Glasgow, and which read as 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. II 7 
 
 follows : " No Irish employed here now." The cause 
 of this unsavoury-worded announcement had been the 
 discovery of very extensive peculations, and, rightly or 
 wrongly, the managers thought they were justified in 
 excluding Irish work people for the future. " I do not 
 for one moment suppose," De Quincey remarked, " that 
 any of the Glasgow managers have cultivated race-hatred 
 for the poor priest-ridden, and so benighted Irish ; but 
 I do know that in the United States there is a large 
 body of what I would call ' plotting Irishmen,' who are 
 imbued with interminable hatred of England and all 
 things English — perhaps I ought to say British and all 
 things British. Enlightened Englishmen and Americans 
 have long been perplexed by a burning malice and an 
 intense dislike to Britain and its inhabitants displayed 
 by that sect of expatriated Irishmen. It seems very 
 much like that atrocious and viperous malignity imputed, 
 to the father of Hannibal against the Romans." 
 ,"111 Before leaving " The Rose," I made reference to our 
 North British Daily Mail correspondent in Paris, Mr. 
 Percy B. St. John, pronouncing the surname in a pretty 
 broad, Northernly accent, as " Saint John " ; whereupon 
 De Quincey putting on a grave look, and holding up 
 his thin, pale right hand in deprecatory style, said, 
 "Singen, my dear sir, Singen." Even reproof came 
 kindly, almost lovingly, from that gentlest of men. 
 
 That same evening we visited Professor Nichol at the 
 Observatory in the outskirts of Glasgow. The Professor 
 and De Quincey were old and intimate friends and asso- 
 ciates. On the occasion of a previous visit to the Clyde 
 City, De Quincey had made the Professor's house his 
 home for some time. The "Nebular hypothesis" was 
 then largely occupying the brain of the astronomical 
 savant, and little else was talked of during the evening. 
 
Il8 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 As we walked back to town a slight drizzle (which we 
 experienced a little of during our outward walk) seemed to 
 have developed into a thorough, almost blinding " Scotch 
 mist." This led to a disquisition on the British climate, 
 that portion of it which prevailed in the West of 
 Scotland coming in for De Quincey's most effective 
 adjectives. "The damp and fogs of the late autumn 
 and winter will never," he remarked, very gravely, "be 
 cured ; but why the municipal authorities of all our 
 large manufacturing towns do not erect or encourage 
 the erection of Winter Gardens, covered over with glass 
 — such as Chaucer foreshadowed — I never can conceive. 
 Both instruction and amusement — the latter consisting 
 principally of music — might be combined in such insti- 
 tutions, and that at low — what is called popular — prices. 
 Why don't you newspaper people set an agitation going 
 in this direction ? There can be no doubt of a pecuniary 
 success, provided the management be energetic. As it 
 is, a poor, hard-worked artisan must either share a 
 stuffy, ill-lighted and worse-ventilated apartment all 
 the evening, along with his wife and children, or go — 
 where .? — to the nearest public-house. The whole 
 system is rotten that does not provide something better 
 for the spare hours of our toiling millions." 
 
 Of this deliverance I made an extended note as soon 
 as I reached home, and shortly afterwards (and fre- 
 quently since) wrote on the subject. 
 
 Since that date we have had Crystal Palaces and 
 Exhibitions in succession on both sides of the Channel 
 and the Atlantic, but, as far as I know, nothing in the 
 shape of permanent covered-in Winter Gardens for our 
 ill-cared-for masses. 
 
 What we require is popular music, innocuous variety 
 entertainments, and plain refreshments, at a little 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. II9 
 
 more than cost price, with an almost nominal admission 
 fee. 
 
 Da Quincey was not destined to remain long under 
 the watchful, motherly care of Mrs. Tosh. Her little 
 grandson was suddenly struck down by scarlet fever, 
 and we had to make immediate arrangements for trans- 
 ferring our valued contributor and his few belongings to 
 another domicile. " Ah," he answered, putting his hand 
 to his forehead, "that reminds me that I have beeni 
 paying the rent of apartments in Renfield Street for a. 
 number of years. Many valuable books and papers- 
 are or should be there still." As he thus spoke, I stared,, 
 almost agape, in downright amazement. That he 
 should have omitted to furnish me with some details- 
 regarding his former lodgings, when he and I were 
 conversing about Glasgow and its drawbacks a few 
 weeks previously, was more than I could conceive 
 possible. And yet I never once allowed myself to 
 think that he had intentionally withheld such parti- 
 culars. I also consider that any " rent " paid for so 
 long a period can only have been a nominal charge for 
 " storage." As it turned out, he had actually kept on 
 these apartments from 1843, though by far the greater 
 part of his time had been passed since that year in and 
 near Edinburgh. So back to Renfield Street he went. 
 But the more I came to know of De Quincey, the less 
 I wondered at the strange peculiarities which character- 
 ised his every-day existence. In short, he was regular 
 in his irregularity, and oblivious of the consequences. 
 The following little episode is an instance of the scant 
 attention he paid to the exigencies of common life — 
 especially to matters of £ s. d. 
 
 We were leaving the printing-office on a Monday 
 afternoon, some three or four weeks after his arrival 
 
I20 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 from Edinburgh, when he said — " I think I shall draw 
 a few pounds in advance of the money which will be 
 due to me at the end of the month." 
 
 " I should think you must have some ;^20, or thereby, 
 lying at your credit already," was my reply. " You can 
 have it all if you wish. But you told me on Saturday, 
 when you drew £$, that you thought the money would 
 be better to accumulate in our hands." 
 
 He stared as I spoke, as if utterly bewildered, and at 
 length broke out into a speech of pathetic appeal : 
 "Well, well, what can I be thinking of? — You really 
 must excuse me — but where can the money be ? " So 
 saying, he nervously thrust his right hand into his 
 trousers' pocket and fished out a sadly crumpled enve- 
 lope — the same into which I had placed five one-pound 
 notes only a few days before. " I beg a thousand, ten 
 thousand pardons. I believe I am becoming the most 
 stupid of men." Such was the deliverance which the 
 discovery elicited, and it was accompanied by the most 
 ■gracious and deferential of parting salutes. As he left 
 me, I saw him thrust the envelope and its contents well 
 -down into their former receptacle. It was wonderful at 
 times to observe what he did bring forth from that 
 •seemingly capacious pocket — bits of red tape, two or 
 three stumps of black-lead pencil, pieces of twine, etc. 
 
 As is well-known to all who have made the story of 
 his life a study, De Quincey was no Sybarite. Food, 
 solid or liquid, was to him quite a secondary considera- 
 tion, in common with all other purely sensual require- 
 ments. On the other hand he was no Anchorite — far 
 from it. Nothing rejoiced him more than to see all 
 around him, more especially children, enjoying them- 
 selves to their hearts' content. No more lovable man, 
 no man with such powers of attraction, ever walked 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 121 
 
 God's earth. To see and know was to love and 
 venerate him. Humble to a fault, and simple as a 
 child, there was, nevertheless, a true nobility of nature 
 and a more than merely polished refinement interwoven 
 with his every act and expression. Such were inherent 
 to and irremovable from his nature. 
 
 He continued to reside in Glasgow, and to contribute 
 to Tait and the Mating to October or November, 1847, 
 returning then to his cottage at Lasswade. 
 
122 THOMAS DE QUINCEY ; 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 By JOHN RITCHIE FINDLAY. 
 
 Introduction. 
 
 Some explanation of the origin of these Notes may be 
 expected and permitted. 
 
 An elegant edition of the " Confessions of an English 
 Opium-Eater " has lately appeared,* to which are 
 appended some interesting notes of conversations with 
 De Quincey from the pen of a Mr. Richard Woodhouse, 
 barrister of the Temple, a young man of literary tastes, 
 who, says Mr. Garnett, " himself wrote nothing for 
 publication, but mingled with the brilliant literary circle 
 which, about the year 1820, gathered round Messrs. 
 Taylor and Hessey, publishers of the London Magazine, 
 in which the Confessions originally appeared." 
 
 The perusal of these notes indilced me to turn to 
 notes which I myself had taken of conversations held 
 with De Quincey thirty years later. I do not profess — 
 indeed I desire explicity to disclaim — the art and 
 practice of note-taking of this kind : an art and practice 
 which the late Mr. Nassau Senior, for example, carried 
 to the utmost stretch and perfection. Though I have 
 had the honour and pleasure of knowing and talking 
 familiarly with many men of considerable distinction in 
 
 * " Confessions of an English Opium-Eater." Edited by Richard 
 Garnett. London : Kegan Paul, Trench and Co. 1885. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 123 
 
 letters and in public life, the desire to record such inter- 
 course never overcame me, save in this one instance. 
 This of itself may be taken as a humble testimony to 
 the singularly attractive and impressive character of De 
 Quincey's talk. The notes were taken at the time 
 merely and solely for the refreshment of my own 
 memory ; if it ever afterwards occurred to me that they 
 might be of other use, I always felt that they could be 
 so used only after a considerable lapse of years. With 
 the lapse of thirty years or thereby reasons against 
 publication have lapsed likewise, and there now seems 
 to me nothing to prevent those scanty jottings being 
 given to the world of De Quincey's admirers, to be taken 
 for what they are worth. 
 
 The notes extend over a period of seven years — 
 1852-59 — the last years of De Quincey's life. They 
 were mere memoranda pencilled on scraps of paper, 
 sufificient to refresh an originally vivid and retentive 
 memory, until, fearing its failure to keep hold of 
 connecting links, I found leisure fifteen years ago to put 
 the scraps into shape and write them out clearly and 
 fully. In this state they have been seen and read over 
 by one or two of my friends who knew and admired De 
 Quincey ; I think only by John Hill Burton, Alexander 
 Russel, and John Brown — all now, alas ! no more. I 
 have recently felt it my duty to submit them to Mr. de 
 Quincey's surviving daughters, and their approval to the 
 present publication has been most heartily accorded. 
 
 The notes appear here, with one or two trivial 
 excisions, exactly as they were written out in 1870; I 
 have thought it better to relegate to the foot of the page 
 anything like explanation or addition. 
 
 J. R. FiNDLAY. 
 
 1885. 
 
124 THOMAS DE QUINCEY ; 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 My friend Mr. John Hill Burton had often promised to 
 introduce me to Mr. de Quincey, knowing that I took 
 great interest in his writings, although at that time I 
 was acquainted with them mainly through such stray 
 articles as I had read in magazines. 
 
 On the loth January 1852, Mr. Burton and I walked 
 out to where Mr. de Quincey was residing, with his 
 three daughters, in a cottage at Mavisbank, a sort of 
 upper suburb of Lasswade. We were received by Miss 
 de Quincey and Miss Florence.* Before reaching the 
 house Mr. Burton had warned me that it was twenty 
 chances to one whether we would see De Quincey, as he 
 was very shy of strangers, or visitors of any sort, and 
 that I might consider it a great favour if he made his 
 appearance. Miss Florence ascertained that her father 
 was visible, and in a very few minutes he entered the 
 room — a man, once seen, never to be forgotten. His 
 appearance has been often described, but generally, I 
 
 * Miss de Quincey (Margaret) married in 1853 Mr. Robert 
 Craig, who settled as a farmer in Tipperary. She died in 1 87 1, 
 leaving one son, now a captain in the Royal Artillery, and a 
 daughter, now married. Florence married in 1855 Colonel Baird 
 Smith, R.E., who died in 1861, leaving two daughters. Emily, the 
 third daughter, I did not have the pleasure of seeing till a subsequent 
 visit. See Appendix A. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 12$ 
 
 think, with a touch of caricature.* He was a very little 
 man (about S feet 3 or 4 inches) ; his countenance the 
 most remarkable for its intellectual attractiveness that I 
 have ever seen. His features, though not regular, were 
 aristocratically fine, arid an air of delicate breeding 
 pervaded the face. His forehead was unusually high, 
 square, and compact .f At first sight his face appeared 
 boyishly fresh and smooth, with a sort of hectic glow 
 upon it that contrasted remarkably with the evident 
 appearances of age in the grizzled hair and dim-looking 
 eyes. The flush or bloom on the cheeks was, I have 
 no doubt, an effect of his constant use of opium ; and 
 the apparent smoothness of the face disappeared upon 
 examination. The best description of his peculiar 
 appearance in this respect is one given by Sir Walter 
 Scott in reference to General Platoff, whom Scott met at 
 Paris, and from whom, he tells us, he took his portrait 
 of Mr. Touchwood in " St. Ronan's Well." " His face, 
 which at the distance of a yard or two seemed hale and 
 smooth, appeared, when closely examined, to be seamed 
 with a million of wrinkles crossing each other in every 
 direction possible, but as fine as if drawn by the point of 
 a very fine needle." Mr. de Quincey's eyes were dark 
 
 * The " Thomas Papaverius " description in " The Book Hunter," 
 the best known — and the best — of these, certainly errs on this 
 side. It recalls the features, the complexion, the expression and 
 aspect of its subject much as vigorous and highly-coloured caricature 
 portraits — in Vanity Fair, for example — recall noble and honoured 
 faces and figures. We acknowledge and smile at the likeness, 
 with a secret grudge at the perverted power of the limner. 
 
 t As the hair got thinner on the upper part of the head the brow 
 assumed a more arched aspect, as seen in Mr. Archer's drawing, 
 which gives a very good idea of De Quincey's ordinary appearance 
 in his later years — a familiar rather than an intellectual version, 
 however. 
 
126 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 in colour,* the iris large, but with a strange flatness and 
 dimness of aspect, which, however, did not indicate 
 any deficiency of sight. So far as I ever observed he 
 saw distant objects tolerably well, and almost to the 
 very end of his life he could read the smallest print 
 without spectacles. I remember on one occasion he 
 talked about George Gilfillan's pen-and-ink portrait of 
 himself, in which the Reverend George spoke dis- 
 paragingly of his eyes, declaring that De Quincey never 
 looked people straight in the face. He resented keenly 
 the imputation that he had anything approaching to a 
 squint, still more keenly, in his own humorous style, the 
 insinuation, which he declared George intended, that he 
 had also a " moral squint." He had certainly neither 
 the one nor the other ; he looked quite straightforward 
 at one ; but it was often difficult to catch his eyes from 
 the hazy expression diffused over them. They had the 
 dreamy look often observable in students or in short- 
 sighted people.! 
 
 No one who ever met De Quincey could fail to be 
 struck, after even the briefest intercourse, with the 
 
 * The Scotch word "blae " would best express the shade. 
 
 t Persons suffering from such weakness of eyesight are liable to 
 be accused of declining to look an interlocutor fully in the face, 
 simply because their doing so involves a painful strain on their 
 eyes in the attempt to adjust the focus to the distance between the 
 speakers, especially if one eye be weaker than the other. This 
 seems to have been De Quincey's case ; but Gilfillan's description, 
 which appeared originally, I think, in Taifs Magazine, and was 
 reprinted in his " Gallery of Literary Portraits," 1845, goes further 
 than this. He says : " His eyes, they sparkle not, they shine not, 
 they are lustreless : can that be a squint which glances over from 
 them towards you ? No. It is only a slight habit one of them has 
 of occasionally looking in a different direction from the other ; 
 there is nothing else particular about them ; there is not even the 
 glare which lights up sometimes dull eyes into eloquence." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 12/ 
 
 extreme sweetness and courtesy of his manners. He 
 had the air of old-fashioned good manners of the highest 
 kind ; natural and studied politeness, free from the 
 slightest ostentation or parade ; a delicacy, gentleness, 
 and elegance of demeanour that at once conciliated and 
 charmed. As Mr. Burton was well acquainted with the 
 family, and had much to say to the young ladies, De 
 Quincey and I were left for the most part to carry on a 
 sort of side conversation between ourselves, a position 
 which at first I found sufficiently embarrassing. Here I 
 was, a novice, set face to face with one of the greatest 
 masters of conversation — of a special kind of it at least 
 — of his day, with the talk drifting about to all sorts of 
 subjects, for none seemed to come amiss to him. In any 
 attempt to transcribe, or rather describe, his conversation, 
 the chief difficulty would be to fix — perhaps to account 
 for — a certain evanescent charm which every one felt, 
 but which can be only remembered, not transmitted. It 
 was in fact an exquisite and transient emanation from 
 the intellectual and moral nature of the man, enhanced 
 in its effect by the rare beauty of his language, and the 
 perfectly elegant construction of every phrase and 
 sentence that he uttered. The comparison which the 
 American poet and critic and diplomatist, Mr. James 
 Russell Lowell, makes of good style to good breeding is 
 admirably applicable alike to De Quincey's literary 
 style and to his personal manner. Lowell speaks of 
 " that exquisite something called style, which, like the 
 grace of perfect breeding, everywhere persuasive and 
 nowhere emphatic, makes itself felt by the skill with 
 which it effaces itself, and masters us at last with a sense 
 of indefinable completeness." He did not quite, as 
 Burton had told me he would do, talk magazine articles, 
 but the literary habit was notable, though not in the 
 
128 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 least obtrusive, in all his talk. One effect of this was 
 somewhat trying to an inexperienced listener, for when 
 in the flow of his conversation he came to the close of 
 one of his beautifully rounded and balanced paragraphs, 
 he would pause in order to allow you to have your say, 
 with the result sometimes of rather taking one aback, 
 especially as the subject of conversation often seemed to 
 have been brought, by his conduct of it, to its complete 
 and legitimate conclusion. The listener was apt to feel 
 that he had perorated rather than paused. In his mode 
 of conversing, as in everything else, his courtesy of 
 manner was observable. He never monopolised talk, 
 allowed every one to have a fair chance, and listened 
 with respectful patience to the most commonplace 
 remarks from any one present. The fact that any one 
 was, for the time, a member of the company in which 
 he also happened to be, evidently in his eyes entitled 
 the speaker to all consideration and respect. But he 
 had a just horror of bores, and carefully avoided them. 
 We talked, among many other things, about Macaulay, 
 and about his prodigious power and love of talk. De 
 Quincey remarked that such passion for speaking was 
 usually the sign of a weak and shallow mind, but that 
 Macaulay was a remarkable exception to this rule — that 
 he was the only man of real power and substantial 
 acquirements of whom he had ever heard, who was 
 possessed by " an actual incontinence of talk." Even 
 Coleridge, regarded as the greatest talker of the day, 
 would not always talk, whilst Macaulay seemed ready to 
 pour forth a flood of disquisition and information at any 
 given time. With Coleridge there was always one 
 difficulty, and sometimes two. It was sometimes a great 
 difficulty to get him to begin to talk ; it was always so 
 to get him to stop. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 29 
 
 On our leaving, Mr. de Quincey accompanied us to 
 the.door, and whilst he was standing in the little garden- 
 plot in front of the house I observed that his feet had 
 been thrust stockingless into an old pair of slippers. 
 And here he was, a man of sixty-three years of age, and 
 apparently of extreme feebleness, thus standing bare- 
 headed in the raw air of a January afternoon. We 
 remarked that he would catch cold, and were hurrying 
 away, but he begged us not to be the least uneasy on 
 his account, for he never did take cold ; it was one of 
 the many advantages of opium that it preserved him 
 against all such trivial accidents. His dress, to an 
 allusion to which I have thus been drawn incidentally, 
 was at all times peculiar. His clothes had generally a 
 look of extreme age, and also of having been made for 
 a person somewhat larger than himself. I believe the 
 real cause of this was that he had got much thinner in 
 those later years ; whilst he wore, and did wear, I 
 suppose till the end of his life, the clothes that had been 
 made for him years before. I have sometimes seen 
 appearances about him of a shirt and shirtrcollar, but 
 usually there were no indications of these articles of dress. 
 When I came to visit him in his lodgings, I saw him in 
 all stages of costume ; sometimes he would come in to 
 me from his bedroom to his parlour, as on this occasion, 
 with shoes, but no stockings, and sometimes with 
 stockings, but no shoes. When in bed, where I also saw 
 him from time to time, he wore a large jacket — not 
 exactly an under-jacket, but a jacket made in the form 
 of a coat, of white flannel ; something like a cricketer's 
 coat in fact. In the street his appearance was equally 
 singular. He walked with considerable rapidity (he 
 said walking was the only athletic exercise in which he 
 had ever excelled) and with an odd one-sided, and yet 
 
 K 
 
130 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 straightforward motion, moving his legs only, and 
 neither his arms, head, nor any other part of his body- — 
 like Wordsworth's cloud — 
 
 " Moving altogether, if he moved at all." 
 
 His hat, which had the antediluvian aspect characteristic 
 of the rest of his clothes, was generally stuck on the 
 back of his head, and no one who ever met that 
 antiquated figure, with that strangely dreamy and 
 .intellectual face, working its way rapidly, and ; with an 
 -oddly deferential air, .through any of the streets of 
 Edinburgh — a sight certainly by no means common, for 
 ,he was very seldom to be seen in town — could ever 
 .forget it.* He was very fond of walking, but generally 
 liis walks were merely into town to his publisher's office 
 <i{Mr. Hogg's; then in Nicolson Street) and back again to 
 Lasswade. Till he was nearly seventy he took this walk 
 — one of twelve miles — without inconvenience. 
 
 At this introductory meeting at Lasswade it was 
 arranged by Miss de Quincey that Mr. Burton and I 
 should come out to dinner ten days afterwards, and on 
 Monday, 19th January, we again walked out. The 
 family party was on this occasion augmented by his third 
 daughter, Miss Emily, but Mr. Burton and I were the 
 only strangers. At dinner we talked on ordinary topics, 
 in which small and table talk De Quincey was always as 
 ready to join as in the most abstruse discussion. He 
 took an interest in, and kept himself up with, all ; the 
 current topics of the day ; knew the latest accident and 
 incident reported in the newspapers, as well as the 
 minutest occurrences recorded in the lives of distinguished 
 
 * See Mrs. Baird Smith's description of her father's mode of 
 dressing, p. 361, vol. i., of "Thomas de Quincey: his Life and 
 Writings." By H. A. Page. Two vols. London, 1877. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. I31 
 
 characters of past generations.* When the ladies left, 
 Burton and De Quincey got upon talk about old authors, 
 and on questions of history and classics that were beyond 
 my depth ; so that sometimes for considerable intervals 
 I was left stranded on the shore, with this double tide of 
 erudition and speculation ebbing and flowing before me. 
 Among other things we had some conversation about 
 ecclesiastical matters — about the habit that every eccle- 
 siastical set, every church or corporation, has of abusing 
 and denouncing its rivals, and of the ingenuity with which 
 each could fasten upon the other Scriptural symptoms of 
 reprobation. De Quincey remarked that this was really 
 not a difficult matter. " I think," said he, " it would be 
 a very easy task for any one possessed of ordinary powers 
 of research, and some knowledge of the great Antichrist 
 controversy, by the exercise of moderate ingenuity to fix 
 down all the marks of Antichrist — of course you don't for 
 a moment suppose that I in the slightest degree believe 
 in the popular notion and theory of Antichrist — but 
 certainly all the popular signs and characteristics of 
 Antichrist might be very readily fixed down upon the 
 Presbyterian Church of Scotland." The placidity of 
 manner and tone with which he enunciated thi-s, knd 
 other startling propositions, corresponded well with the 
 
 * He read the newspapers sedulously; and Dr. Warburton 
 Begbie, in his notes on De Quincey's last illness, says : " Whether 
 seated in his chair or lying in bed, I equally found him attempting 
 to read without spectacles, which he never employed. The Scotsman, 
 if not in his hands, was very near him, and he highly prized it, 
 styling it a wonderful newspaper, exhibiting a versatility of political, 
 chiefly, but of varied talent, such as, he beheved, had never been 
 surpassed." As this passage is omitted from the version of Dr. 
 Begbie's notes given by Mr. Page (see Life, vol. ii. p. 295), I have 
 a natural and, I hope, excusable, pride in printing it here from the 
 original manuscript. 
 
 K 2 
 
152 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 description which Bayle gives of an eccentric philosopher 
 who was burnt in Paris in 1 573, for " privately dogmatising 
 upon Atheism," and who, says Bayle, " although he main- 
 tained his heterodox opinions until death, always pro- 
 nounced them with a sweetness and gentleness of manner, 
 and from a mouth made up for the delivery of the most 
 refined phraseology." We had some speculation as to 
 the terrific denunciations which would follow the publi- 
 cation of a treatise on this subject and in this tone, from 
 a man able to exercise such perverse ingenuity as he 
 described — none better fitted to do so, as I ventured to 
 hint, than himself. Once, after some pause in the con- 
 versation, De Quincey and Burton began to talk at the 
 same moment. Burton, of course, at once gave way. 
 This, however, De Quincey would not permit, and after a 
 prolonged struggle in politeness De Quincey carried his 
 point by bargaining that, when Burton had said his say, 
 he would be prepared to follow with the remark he had 
 been stopped in making. Burton having accordingly at 
 some length delivered himself, asked De Quincey to 
 take his turn. But by this time oblivion had covered up 
 what he had intended to say, leading him to indulge 
 a humorous lamentation over his lost idea, regarding 
 which he said all that he could be certain was, that it 
 was unquestionably a brilliant and original one, which 
 might have shed light upon some of the great questions 
 that perplex the world ; though now, to the lasting loss 
 of humanity, the spark had gone out for ever. 
 
 In the course of the evening a curious episode 
 occurred. The perfect quiet of the rural roadway or 
 lane was suddenly broken by the sound of children's 
 voices singing, The whole household went to the door, 
 and found in the little garden plot a party of " guisers," 
 who, their song finished, were sent away with some small 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 33 
 
 gratuity. Whilst the little group, including the ladies 
 and the maid-servants, were gathered in the doorway 
 looking at and listening to the children singing, De 
 Quincey stood silent, and appeared to have lapsed into a 
 soft of dream, which abstracted state continued for a 
 few minutes after our return to the dining-room. He 
 had evidently misunderstood the character of his visitors, 
 and instead of rightly regarding them as village children 
 on an evening frolic, fancied that they were in actual 
 distress, and making a somewhat peculiar, and more 
 than usually clamorous appeal for charity. Silence was 
 strikingly broken by his exclaiming, " All that I have 
 ever had enjoyment of in life, the charms of friendship, 
 the smiles of women, and the joys of wine, seem to rise 
 up to reproach me for my happiness when I see such 
 misery, and think there is so much of it in the world." 
 
 After we had rejoined the ladies, in talking about our 
 having to walk home in the dark, there were some jokes 
 about the possibility of our being attacked and garrotted. 
 We both remarked that we would be poor subjects, of 
 plunder, when De Quincey said that we would certainly 
 not be such profitable subjects as a young gentleman 
 whom his son had lately brought out to visit them, and 
 whom they had made very uneasy on the score of the 
 risks he ran. He was covered, De Quincey said, with 
 magnificent jewellery — hung over with chains, rings, 
 breastpins, etc. De Quincey speculated upon the 
 pleased surprise with which any party of garrotters 
 would regard the capture and plunder of such a gilded 
 youth. They would have rejoiced, he said, as did the 
 pirates of old when they came across, not an ordinary 
 prize, but a Spanish galleon. The young ladies played 
 overtures and other pieces on the piano, one of which 
 De Quincey particularly praised, saying that it soothed 
 
134 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 him like a delicious anodyne. Miss Florence remarked 
 that it was a poor compliment to the music to say that 
 it sent him to sleep. He explained to her, with burlesque 
 excess of particularity and politeness — the humour of 
 which he himself evidently enjoyed as keenly as the 
 amused auditors — that it was really the highest compli- 
 ment he could pay to it, for he rneant that the music 
 was giving the greatest spiritual gratification, and being 
 to him, for the time, the highest good, as making him, 
 usually so miserable, temporarily happy ; and therefore 
 fulfilling its purpose, though not, perhaps, in the ordinary 
 way or according to rule. 
 
 On our leaving, Mr. de Quincey, though the night 
 was dark and the road tortuous, insisted upon accom- 
 panying us to Loanhead, in order that he might show 
 me the ultimate point to which the Lasswade coach 
 would carry me in the direction of his house, "when 
 next I did him the honour to come out to see him." 
 On the way I asked him if he ever visited his old friend 
 Professor Wilson, who was at that time residing in bad 
 health with his brother in Dalkeith. He said he had 
 not. His reason for not going to see him was, he said, 
 that he understood Wilson, from the nervous condition 
 of mind into which he had fallen, did not care to see 
 visitors ; was not, indeed, able to receive them. " I have, 
 however, intended for a considerable time to write to 
 him. I have not yet accomplished my purpose, but I 
 shall probably make it out to-morrow." He continued, 
 "The misfortune of the case, and the consideration 
 which retards me from writing, is that I have two 
 motives for doing so — one an interested motive, the 
 other a disinterested one. And when these two go 
 together, the former, like Pharaoh's lean kine, swallows 
 up the latter, entirely annihilates it, and leaves only the 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 35 
 
 interested one standing in its native and loathsome lean- 
 ness. I have, you will believe me, the most sincere 
 desire to ask after my old friend John Wilson's welfare, 
 but years ago he did me a service which I in some sort 
 now require to have renewed. The circumstances were 
 that, among many wanderings, I had settled for some 
 time in Glasgow. I had left there a number of books 
 and manuscripts of some value to myself, although not 
 perhaps of very much to any other person. Subse- 
 quently, when residing in Edinburgh, I wished to place 
 those articles out of the risks of such accidents as 
 arrestments and the like. Being acquainted with no one 
 in Glasgow who could aid me in such a difficulty, and 
 knowing Wilson's connection with the west of Scotland, 
 I naturally applied to him, and received from him a 
 letter of introduction to a Glasgow bookseller. On 
 presenting the letter this gentleman expressed in the 
 strongest terms his willingness to do anything whatever 
 to oblige his friend Wilson, Of course, reinforced by 
 such aid, I felt as if I had come into the possession of 
 Aladdin's lamp, Wilson's friend being the genius who, 
 thus called up, was ready to relieve me from all my 
 troubles — a man who said to his servants. Come, and he 
 Cometh ; go, and he gpeth ; do this, and he doeth it ; 
 and who furnished me with all the necessary means for 
 recovering and transporting the books and manuscripts. 
 They were deposited in safety, and I returned home in^ 
 triumph. This was some years ago, and my present 
 dilemma is, that I have totally forgotten not only the 
 name of the street and the appearance of the place ia 
 which they were deposited, but also the name and! 
 address of the gentleman to whom Wilson gave me the 
 introduction. My unfortunate chattels, therefore, instead 
 of being rescued from destruction, are plunged into a 
 
136 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 deeper and more hopeless oblivion than ever. This, 
 you wrill see, is what I want to know from Wilson, not, 
 of course, where the books are placed, but the name of 
 the gentleman to whom he introduced me, and I shall 
 certainly write to him one of these days." * 
 
 On another evening (lOth November, 1853) on which I 
 went to Lasswade again with Mr. Burton, Mr. R. M. 
 Craig, who soon after married Miss de Quincey, was of 
 the party ; and this was the only occasion of the many 
 times I saw De Quincey, at all hours and under varied 
 circumstances, on which he did not shine — that is to say, 
 he was languid and dull. He was probably suffering 
 from mental stress and want of sleep, or possibly from 
 the reaction supervening on one of his terms of extra 
 addiction to opium. We had little talk with him during 
 dinner, and he made almost no effort to join in, or keep 
 up the conversation. In the evening, however, he 
 brightened up a bit, and we had some good discussion 
 about Dr. Johnson. Johnson's contradictoriness, and 
 his remarkable want of knowledge of, or adherence to, 
 first principles, were strongly dwelt upon by De Quincey. 
 
 * Those are no doubt the papers afterwards restored to him by 
 the ingenious intervention of Mr. Hogg : see Page, vol. ii. p. 8. 
 My memory even now (1885) retains assurance that in this case I 
 report almost word for word De Quincey 's phrases. I do not 
 know that in all cases where I have in like manner reported him I 
 could be quite so certain, but must be content, like Mr. Woodhouse, 
 to give the substance of what he said "somewhat in his own 
 manner," with the view of affording "some idea of the general 
 tenor of his conversation, and of the richness of his mind, and of 
 the facility with which he brings in the stores of his reading and 
 reflection to bear upon the ordinary topics of conversation." But 
 I feel, as Mr. Woodhouse says he did, " that it can convey no 
 adequate impression [either of those qualities, I may add] or of the 
 eloquence and scope of his language." Those felicities were indeed 
 too delicate and transient to be so caught and transmitted.. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 37 
 
 The only writings of Johnson's which seemed to him to 
 indicate any appreciation and hold of first principles 
 were the law papers which he drew up for Boswell. 
 Johnson evidently did not appreciate, did not compre- 
 hend, the high philosophic powers of Burke for example ; 
 even as such powers were indicated in Burke's " Treatise 
 on the Sublime and Beautiful," a subject that would 
 naturally interest Johnson. 
 
 Talking about the Scotch accent and language, and 
 remarking how pleasant a dialect Scotch was if spoken 
 without vulgarity on the one hand or affectation on the 
 other, I instanced Lord Cockburn as one of the best 
 speakers of Scotch that I ever heard. De Quincey 
 demurred a little, on the ground that Cockburn prided 
 himself rather too much upon it, and that there was in 
 his Scotch the slightest shade of that affectation which 
 had been deprecated. Remarking on the light in which 
 the Scotch tongue was regarded by the English, I 
 complained of the unconcealed contempt with which the 
 vulgar English regarded any indication of Scotch pro- 
 nunciation, and expressed a fear that the same dislike 
 extended pretty well up in society. This De Quincey 
 and Miss Florence vehemently denied, maintaining that 
 in good English society they never heard the speak- 
 ing of Scotch, unless it were obviously tainted with 
 vulgarity, remarked on otherwise than as giving 
 additional interest to the person using it. 
 
 On Sunday, 25th June, 1854, in the course of a walk I 
 met De Quincey at the Dean Bridge at the close of the 
 afternoon service. He told me that he was staying in 
 town, and that he had taken advantage of the quiet of the 
 Sunday afternoon for a walk, but that he unfortunately 
 miscalculated his time, and, seeking for solitude, had found 
 himself in the midst of a crowd of gay and fashionable 
 
138 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 people returning from church, or walking after church. 
 With his usual politeness he insisted upon walking back 
 towards town with me, in spite of the crowds. He did 
 so to the west end of Princes Street. I returned again 
 with him to the end of the Dean Bridge. He insisted 
 upon going back with me ; and so we walked back and 
 forward five or six times. He began conversation by 
 telling me that he was extremely desirous of sending to 
 one of my sisters — who were by this time acquainted 
 ■with him and his daughters — a copy of the newly 
 published third volume of his works.* He had been 
 unable, however, he said, to ascertain whether we spelt 
 the name Findlay with or without a " d," and that this 
 " d " difficulty had prevented him inscribing, as he 
 intended to do, the volume ; for of all the petty breaches 
 of good manners that he desired most to avoid, was that 
 of either mis-calling or mis-spelling any one's name. 
 He considered it unpardonable in the case of any one 
 with whom you have any pretension to acquaintance- 
 ship ; and his want of precise knowledge had proved an 
 insuperable obstacle to his carrying out the intention 
 referred to. He had consulted his publisher on the 
 point, but he could not give him any certain or trust- 
 worthy information. He had not supposed, he said, 
 that young ladies would be at all interested in the 
 biographical portion of his book, of which the two first 
 volumes mainly consisted, but the third being more of a 
 narrative, might, he thought, amuse them. I told him 
 that they had read all the three with great interest, but 
 that, nevertheless, they would attach a high value to his 
 proposed present ; which, of course, never came.f He 
 
 • " Selections : Grave and Gay," etc. Hogg. 
 t This arose, I believe, from real incapacity to carry out his 
 intentions in such matters ; a sort of paralysis of the will suspending 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 39 
 
 explained that he had left Lasswade partly to be near 
 books and libraries to complete his fourth volume more 
 conveniently, but partly also for change, and from a 
 desire which perpetually haunted him to fly from 
 himself. " I often," he said " feel an almost irresistible 
 inclination to rush away and bury myself among books 
 in the heart of some great city like London or Paris." 
 I asked for his daughters. He said he had not seen nor 
 heard of them since he left Lasswade, some three weeks 
 before. He never wrote letters, and did not wish to 
 receive any ; therefore he had no means of knowing how 
 they were, unless he walked out to ask for them, which 
 he intended to do very soon. Passing across the Dean 
 Bridge, he remarked upon the peculiar beauty of the 
 view — the mixed elements in it, the noble city view, im- 
 posing mansions on the one side, and trees, hills, and 
 the sea in the distance, and yet apparently in immediate 
 proximity. It was a rus in urbe, or, more properly, it 
 was a town in the country. Once, in walking with him 
 in moonlight on George IV. Bridge, before it was so 
 much built up as it is now, he spoke enthusiastically of 
 the dark masses on the west side of the Bridge, crowned 
 by the broken bulk of the castle with all its romantic 
 associations.* 
 
 the action that ought to have followed the intent — a condition all 
 nervous people can more or less understand, as being so far subject 
 to it themselves. It is aggravated by anything like a dilemma or 
 a choice of' courses ; in those cases the impulse, faint enough 
 perhaps to carry action into one course, gets hopelessly dissipated 
 in the contemplation of more than one ; though I suspect that 
 De Quincey rather enjoyed being subject to such dilemmas. 
 
 * This moonlight walk arose out of a highly characteristic trait. 
 He had dined with me at George Square ; he preferred an early 
 hour, and our small party had sat down to dinner at five or six 
 o'clock. The two or three guests, all equally fascinated and de- 
 
140 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 We got, somehow or other, into a sort of sad, and 
 almost too personal, m.ood of converse, in the course of 
 which he spoke in that tone of despondency into which 
 
 lighted with his talk — only my uncle,* Russel, and Burton probably 
 — had left us one by one : my uncle for the country, where he was 
 staying, I inhabiting alone his house in town ; Burton, uncere- 
 moniously enough when he thought fit to go ; and at last Russel, 
 about eleven o'clock, he having his work at the Scotsman office for 
 next morning's paper, as I had also. After fully an hour more had 
 slipped away I was obliged to tell De Quincey that I too must go. 
 Then came elegant apologies, undoubtedly sincere, and we left 
 together, my desire being to see him safe home to his lodgings in 
 Lothian Street. No, he would accompany me through the silent 
 midnight streets that fine summer evening. So we walked back- 
 wards and forwards for probably another hour between the High 
 Street (where the office of the Scotsman then was) and Lothian 
 Street, till at last the inevitable " good night " was spoken. I got 
 to my post to find my work for the night all but finished by 
 Mr. Russel, who immensely enjoyed the " fix " in which he had left 
 me, and was much surprised at my having, by any device or 
 exercise of moral courage, got out of it. As De Quincey said of 
 Coleridge that the first difficulty was to get him to begin to talk 
 and the second to get him to stop, so of De Quincey the first 
 difficulty was to induce him to visit you and the second to reconcile 
 him to leaving. He would have sat up talking all night on this or 
 any other night as readily as he did one night with Mr. Woodhouse 
 (Mr. Garnett's edition of the " Confessions," p. 21 2 : in that case also 
 after a long sederunt at dinner), quietly happy in the exercise and 
 interchange of thought, and oblivious of the lapse of time. He ate 
 almost nothing (we were always careful to have some light soft food 
 prepared especially for him), he drank nothing, even under " social 
 pressure," beyond one or two wineglassfuls of extremely weak 
 brandy and water, and out of his own lodgings I never saw him 
 touch laudanum. He seemed on such occasions truly, as he calls 
 himself in his " Confessions " or "Autobiographical Sketches," " an 
 intellectual creature," independent of the ordinary wants and con- 
 ditions of humanity. Something of congenial company— once he 
 
 * Mr. John Ritchie, proprietor of the Scotsman; Mr. Russel 
 being its editor. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 41 
 
 he occasionally fell, of the melancholy that attached to 
 looking back upon life ; how small is the benefit which 
 people in the course of it obtain from experience which 
 they really only acquire when they have little further 
 use for it ; and how mortifying it is to reflect how very 
 different a man's course might have been had he known 
 at the beginning what he knows at the end of it. For 
 himself, he said, so " stale, ilat, and unprofitable " was the 
 retrospect, that he turned away from it " shuddering and 
 ashamed." 
 
 I told him that Dr. Robert Lee * had expressed a 
 desire to be introduced to him, and asked if I might take 
 the liberty of bringing him to call. He said he should 
 be delighted. " I have long known him," he said, " from 
 his public appearances, have admired his learning and 
 liberality, and had I not been the miserable, incapable 
 creature that I am in all such matters, I should certainly 
 have sought an introduction to him long ago. I should, 
 therefore, be extremely grateful to you if you will so far 
 trouble yourself in the matter as to be the medium of 
 bringing us together." I remember, either on this or on 
 a subsequent occasion, speaking to him of Dr. Lee's 
 pulpit appearances, and asking him if he would not come 
 to hear him preach. He said that he never went to 
 
 was in it ; for it was not a necessity to him ; it sought him, not he 
 it — with speculative and pleasant talk, so beguiled for him hours 
 that might otherwise have been weary and heavy-laden that they 
 glided on unregarded by himself, and only reckoned by his com- 
 panions as too short to have had crowded into them so much 
 worth remembering that each memorable opinion or expression 
 was but too apt to jostle the other out of recollection. 
 
 * Minister of Old Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh. He was a 
 leader of liberal thought and practice in the Church of Scotland, 
 and as usual was denounced and persecuted in its courts, his great 
 merits and services only now coming to be fully acknowledged — 
 fifteen years after his death. 
 
142 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 church ; on which I remarked that probably he had not 
 persisted so long in doing so as another friend of mine 
 who declared that he went to church until it became a 
 sin to go. He said he feared that he could not entertain 
 the idea of returning, even to hear Dr. Lee, for the 
 irksomeness which he had often endured of sitting 
 listening to a man groping and fumbling, where he saw 
 a clear way to leap, was so intolerable that he could not 
 subject himself to the slightest risk of a repetition of such 
 mental agony. 
 
 Mr. Burton, hearing that De Quincey was in town, 
 asked him to supper, and requested me to call at Lothian 
 Street for him on my way from George Square to Ann 
 Street, Stockbridge — where Burton then lived — and if 
 possible to bring him with me. On calling on the 
 evening in question (28th June, 1854), at De Quincey's 
 lodgings, I found he had left a message for me, to say 
 that he would meet me on the Dean Bridge. There 
 accordingly I found him, and on expressing my satisfac- 
 tion at seeing him so far on his way to Mr. Burton's, he 
 begged that I would not infer from the fact of his being 
 on the way that he was going there. Naturally enough 
 at such an odd remark my inclination was to laugh, and 
 to try a little banter ; but for this his tone was too grave 
 and sincere. "I have come out," he added, "to try 
 whether the delightful air of this fine summer evening 
 will do anything to dispel that intolerable languor and 
 deep-seated suffering that distract me, and to which I 
 have been a martyr for days." I tried to persuade him 
 that as there was no party — only my uncle and another 
 friend — a little society might probably help him towards 
 attaining a more cheerful state of mind. But he would 
 not be induced. He said he felt so wretched that he 
 could not face any one — that there were times when he 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 143 
 
 fled from his best friends, and that this was one of them. 
 Besides, he said that if he went he would be compelled, 
 by a desire to bring himself up to something like the 
 common level of humanity, to take some stimulant, a 
 little wine or spirits, and that for such indulgence, even 
 to an amount which in any other person would be not 
 only ordinary but trivial, he should afterwards suffer the 
 pangs of hell. " Oh, my God," he exclaimed, " the 
 miseries I have been born to endure ; what tortures I 
 have suffered, and what tortures am I yet doomed to 
 suffer ! " I was greatly pained and distressed. Nothing, 
 he said, but a large dose of laudanum gave him relief; 
 that he took such a dose to enable him to get through 
 a burst of work occasionally, but that he dare not repeat 
 it too often, and so in the intervals he had nothing for it 
 but to endure. 
 
 We wandered, as usual, into all sorts of subjects, and 
 amongst others he spoke of Dugald Stewart, whom he 
 did not estimate highly, referring to the slight notice he 
 took of Kant as evidence of his not being at all alive to 
 the magnitude of-the revolution which Kant's system of 
 ■philosophy was calculated to effect. With considerable 
 persuasion I got him to go so far as the north end of 
 Ann Street, which I was enabled to do the more readily 
 as he said he recollected that Wilson lived in that street 
 in his early days. I had drawn him thither with a vague 
 hope that if Burton had been on the outlook we might 
 have pulled him in after all. But, unfortunately, no such 
 chance occurred, and we parted at the end of the street, 
 he insisting that I should not make myself late by going 
 back with him. 
 
 On Saturday, 29th July, of the same year, I called on 
 De Quincey at his ^lodgings in Lothian Street, to ask 
 him to come round to my uncle's to supper next evening, 
 
144 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 when we expected Burton, who had been disappointed 
 by his previous non-appearance. We had some talk 
 about Burton and his prodigious power of working. 
 "He seems," says De Quincey, "to hunger and thirst 
 after opportunities of working, a feeling which I am 
 perfectly incapable of comprehending." We talked of 
 Burton's appointment as Secretary of the Prison Board, 
 and De Quincey remarked that he was well acquainted 
 with his predecessor, Mr. Ludovic Colquhoun. He knew 
 the family, and had often been asked to Mr. Colquhoun's 
 or his father's to dinner ; and, though he never went, he 
 had frequently called to apologize for not having gone. 
 We talked about his (De Quincey's) articles on Pope, 
 Shakespeare, and Goethe, in the seventh edition of the 
 Encyclopcedia Britannica. On my telling him how much 
 pleased I had been to find my own preconceived notions 
 of Goethe confirmed by his high authority, and by the 
 good reasons he gave for such opinion, he went pretty 
 fully into the whole question of the nature of Goethe's 
 genius. Among other things he mentioned that Words- 
 worth, who was apt to take extreme opinions upon such 
 subjects, regarded Goethe as little better than a quack. 
 Wordsworth he said, never read books, but somehow or 
 other " Wilhelm Meister " had fallen in his way, and he had 
 gone through it till he came to the scene where the hero, 
 in his mistress's bedroom, becomes sentimental over her 
 dirty towels, etc., which struck him with such disgust 
 that he flung the book out of his hand, would never look 
 at it again, and declared that surely no English lady 
 would ever read such a work. 
 
 Invited to return to see him, I called from time to 
 time ; half an hour's conversation with him was a 
 privilege I valued too highly to risk drawing upon it 
 too often. He was ready to talk on any subject ; the 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 145 
 
 day's news ; the articles in the Scotsman ; recent books ; 
 our common friends ; anything that came uppermost ; 
 for he was in converse a man of the world, and no mere 
 pedant or bookworm. At times he would play, as it 
 were, with trivial topics in talk ; treating them with a 
 sort of mock importance. For example, in this way he 
 once entered into a long dissertation on the troubles 
 of dressing. Shaving, especially, he said, was a grand 
 difficulty. After collecting the best information on the 
 subject, he had purchased a set of first-rate razors, but 
 he had been told that they could not be kept in order 
 without continual stropping, a task to which he could 
 not think of subjecting himself ; besides which there 
 was the necessity for keeping a soap-box, an article of 
 furniture he utterly abhorred. Some years after he 
 solved the difficulty by allowing his beard to grow. 
 The first time that I saw him in this state, the under 
 part of his face covered with thin grey hair, he explained 
 to me that his hirsute condition was not owing to his 
 having joined the "mustache movement," as it was 
 called. He hoped that I would acquit him of any such 
 utter imbecility as that. It all arose, he said, from the 
 old difficulty of razors. He could not be troubled shaving 
 himself, and he could not endure any other person shaving 
 him. The intolerable smell of a barber's fingers in every 
 case in which he had attempted to undergo the operation, 
 had filled him with disgust so great that he could barely 
 muster courage and politeness to endure its being 
 carried out.* 
 
 * Once when he had walked in from Lasswade to dine at 
 George Square he was shown into a room to wash in which was a 
 fixed basin with hot and cold water, an arrangement not so common 
 thirty years ago as now. Turning on the water, I left for a moment 
 to fetch a towel, and on my return found Mr. de Quincey standing 
 in an attitude of paralysed perplexity a little way off from the 
 
 L 
 
146 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 On one occasion (24th November, 1854) I called to 
 ask for him, he having sent word that from illness he 
 could not come to supper at George Square as he had 
 promised to do. He stated that he had made an effort to 
 write an explanatory note, but was unable to do so, and 
 had been obliged to content himself with a message. 
 His foot, he said, had been affected by his having been 
 taking large doses of opium ; " in fact," he said, " my leg 
 is quite black, from the foot to considerably above the 
 knee." He treated lightly my expressions of regret at 
 such an alarming appearance, saying that he had had it 
 before, and knew how far it would go, and how it could 
 be got quit of* The best cure, he said, would be to 
 take six months' walking ; on which I said that his case 
 was like that of St. Denis : — " Ce n'est qtie le premier pas 
 qui co4te." How was he to begin this regimen ? He 
 
 nearly brimful basin. His alarm was lest the basin should overflow 
 and deluge the room, an evil which I explained was provided 
 against. He justified his fears by calling attention to the rapid 
 inflow of the water, and made the most amusing comparisons of 
 himself to the hero of the German story " Undine," overwhelmed by 
 waters which he had conjured up but could not control. I daresay 
 he must have used to me in his description of his plight some such 
 phrases as that very characteristic one in his " Logic of Political 
 Economy," in which he speaks of water bearing no value in a 
 country like this " except under that machinery of costly arrange- 
 ments which delivers it as a permanent and guaranteed succession 
 into the very chambers where it is to be used." His language 
 naturally and unavoidably shaped itself into such stately phrases. 
 If any auditor were tempted to smile at their occasionally somewhat 
 inappropriate pomp and elegance, he would have readily joined in 
 the laugh — ^though, indeed, he rarely laughed at all — and would 
 have amplified the illustrations and heightened the humour of the 
 occasion. 
 
 * In an unpublished letter, of date March 9, 1846, he speaks 
 of an abrasion on his heel having "brought back that dreadful 
 purpura from which I suffered so much for three years." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 147 
 
 answered that by his leaving off opium, even for a few 
 days, his leg would so far recover as to enable him to go 
 out; "but," he says, "I cannot do that, for without 
 opium I can't get on with my work, which the publishers 
 are urging me to complete. The work must be done ; 
 the opium can't be left off; therefore I cannot begin 
 to walk, and the leg must take its chance." 
 
 He remained in these lodgings from 1854 until his 
 death five years afterwards ; his temporary residence 
 thus becoming permanent, with, I believe, an interval of 
 not more than five or six months at Lasswade. This 
 was extremely characteristic ; in fact he had walked into 
 town from Lasswade to these lodgings, where he had 
 been some years before, without any preparation in the 
 way of luggage or otherwise ; and he explained to me if 
 it had not been that his landlady, Mrs. Wilson, being a 
 conscientious and careful woman, had preserved for him 
 a quantity of clothing which he had left on his former 
 sojourn, he would have been in sad straits as to dress. 
 Into such straits he occasionally lapsed afterwards, for I 
 remember his frankly telling me that on one occasion 
 he could not go out to walk because he had not a pair 
 of trousers. Of course it was sheer carelessness, on his 
 part ; even the vigilant supervision of his daughters was 
 insufficient to keep him, in these matters, in anything 
 like the condition of ordinary mortals. 
 
 Thus far I have brought my recollections into some- 
 thing of consecutive and connected order ; for the rest, 
 I must be content to present them rather disjointedly ; 
 or, at least as mere notes or memoranda. 
 
 loth July, 1854.— De Quincey came to supper with 
 us in George Square on Sunday. We were en 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 famille ;* the only other guest being Burton. We spoke of 
 the different habits of men in drinking different liquors. 
 He said he used to be fond of gin and water, and drank 
 it till Byron's Life was published, when he gave it up, 
 because he did not wish to be accused, however falsely, 
 of imitating Byron even in that. He was much amused 
 by my account of ■ a scene between Sydney Dobell, 
 Professor Piazzi Smyth, Mr. Augustus St. John, and 
 Leitch Ritchie, which I told him I had witnessed.f 
 The incident had occurred a short time previously (4th 
 February) and was this : — Leitch Ritchie had asked 
 some friends to supper at his house (32, Danube Street, 
 Edinburgh), to meet Mr. John Augustus St. John, author 
 of several books of travel, a fine looking man of between 
 sixty and seventy, who had lost his eyesight from 
 ophthalmia in Egypt. Among those who arrived early, 
 
 * My grand-uncle's family consisted of his niece, my mother, 
 my two sisters, and myself ; and an old habit was kept up by the 
 household of having a small supper on Sunday evening at the 
 highly unfashionable hour of nine o'clock, at which one or two 
 friends usually dropped in. To my uncle, who was at that time 
 nearly eighty years of age — ^he died in 1870, having almost com- 
 pleted his ninety-third year — Mr. de Quincey took a great liking, 
 admiring and commenting on his great physical and mental vigour 
 in advanced age, and on his independence and strength of judgment. 
 Though nearly fifteen years younger than my uncle, De Quincey 
 looked the older man of the two, and, both having personal memories 
 of events of earlier date than we of a second or third generation, 
 they found many topics of mutual interest apart from literature and 
 politics. My uncle's natural courtesy and kindness of disposition 
 likewise attracted De Quincey, as it did Thackeray, who always 
 spoke of him as " that kind old gentleman." 
 
 t Mr. Leitch Ritchie was at this time editing Chambers's Journal; 
 Mr. Robert Chambers was one of this party. His brother, William 
 Chambers, spoke of Leitch Ritchie to Thackeray as " the most 
 gentlemanly literary man we {i.e. the Messrs. W. and R. Chambers) 
 had ever had to do with," a saying which Thackeray repeated with 
 an expression of supreme scorn. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 149 
 
 was Mr. Piazzi Smyth, Professorof Astronomy, Edinburgh 
 University. He has an impediment in his speech which 
 sometimes altogether prevents utterance for a few 
 moments. Leitch Ritchie himself, again, was extremely 
 deaf. The deaf man, the blind man, and the stammering 
 man, were all the company who had arrived, except Dr. 
 Findlater* and myself, when the door opened artd Mr. 
 Sydney Dobell was announced. Dobell rushing into the 
 room, as soon as Leitch Ritchie mentioned in a vague 
 way, " Mr. Dobell— Mr. St. John," seized by the hand, 
 not Mr. St. John, but Professor Smyth, and began a 
 speech he evidently had cut and dry. " And is it pos- 
 sible that I hold by the hand one who bears the illus- 
 trious name of St. John ! " Smyth in vain attempted to 
 assert his identity ; his tongue refused its office. Leitch 
 •Ritchie, not hearing Dobell's hushed tones, looked on 
 bewildered. It was the blind man, Mr. St. John himself 
 who came to the rescue, saying, " It is I whose name is 
 St. John." Whereupon Dobell turned to him and began 
 " Oh, then, is it possible, etc." Findlater and I . not 
 being sufficiently familiar in the house, and knowing none 
 of the parties except Smyth and Ritchie, had not felt it 
 right to interfere, but remained amazed and amused 
 spectators. Of course Dobell's speech fell very flat, and, 
 besides, St. John further set him down, though gently, 
 by telling him he had no connection with the. Boling- 
 broke family. De Quincey said the complication was 
 as complete as anything the older dramatists ever fancied. 
 He said that walking — a long walk — gave extraordinary 
 depth and spirituality of expression to ladies' eyes. Mr. 
 Burton towards midnight hinted that he was waiting for 
 him to give the signal to rise. De Quincey protested he 
 had been waiting for him. Burton. Burton said he could 
 ' Editor of Chambers's Encyclopadia, etc. 
 
ISO THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 not think of rising before him. We all talked away for 
 a time, and Burton again spoke of going. " Oh, no," 
 says De Quincey, " since you give me the privilege of 
 fixing the time I shall not be coerced, and, even to show 
 my independence, shall have a little more brandy and 
 water and conversation."* 
 
 \gth Septerdber, 1854. — De Quincey dined with us at 
 George Square — with Russel. I called for him at his 
 lodgings in Lothian Street at a quarter before five. He 
 drew my attention to his being ready before the time, 
 pointing to the clock. The weather had been very fine, 
 but the sky was beginning to get cloudy and gray, and I 
 said that I feared a change. De Quincey said, " Yes, but 
 it will be gradual. All the great operations of nature 
 are slow, and the grand dome of fine weather which has 
 hung over us for weeks is not to be lightly or suddenly 
 broken up." Some rather dirty little children were 
 lingering in the common passage of the stair as we came 
 out to the street. He smiled his sweet pensive smile, 
 and patted one of them on the head — she, poor little 
 thing, rather shrinking from the attentions offered by so 
 weird-looking a patron. He turned to me, and we 
 smiled together. 
 
 At dinner Mr. Russel asked him why he lived in town 
 at this season when he had such a nice place in the 
 country. He said, " The convenience consists in this ; 
 that there seems less criminality in disappointing printers 
 when they send only in the next street, than when they 
 come seven miles." I asked him about his daughters. 
 Miss Florence had been expected from Ireland on Friday, 
 and he had been out at Lasswade on that day, but had 
 
 * Sometimes De Quincey preferred to come after dinner, rather 
 than sit through a meal of which he could partake so little. See 
 page 155. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. ISI 
 
 not waited to see her. " She was expected at six, and I 
 left at five." In course of some talk about Professor 
 Wilson, Mr. Russel remarked on his pension, and on his 
 having had to go to the Whigs for it. De Quincey 
 spoke of its disproportionate amount — ;^300, one-fourth 
 of the whole sum annually allowed for literary distinc- 
 tion to be absorbed by Wilson. We sppke of Wilson's 
 thin-skinnedness. Quillinan's poems were reviewed by 
 Blackwood as " Poems by a Heavy Dragoon." Quillinan 
 in retaliation parodied in verse Lockhart's descrip- 
 tion of Wilson in " Peter's Letters." One of the lines 
 was : — 
 
 "And catch a pig, although its tail be soaped." 
 
 Wilson's resentment was intense. Mrs. Wordsworth 
 asked Wilson some time afterwards, when he happened 
 to be in the Lake district, if he would object to dine with 
 Quillinan. He fired up and exclairried, "Oh, no, I'll 
 dine with the Devil if he be asked to the same party." 
 De Quincey remarked as a bad feature in Wilson's cha- 
 racter his love to be surrounded by parasites — persons 
 who were lower in position than himself, and who 
 ministered to his vanity. He ridiculed the sickly, false 
 sentiment of his works, and their evidently insincere and 
 vulgar, over-wrought religionism. His works — his tales 
 at least-^were a jest among the Wordsworths. De 
 Quincey spoke of Wilson as a lecturer. He had heard 
 him once or twice. All dignity and impressiveness as a 
 lecturer were destroyed by his drawing his forefinger 
 down the side of his nose at the end of almost every 
 paragraph. De Quincey's imitation of the action was 
 very droll. He said that the hearer began to anticipate 
 it whenever he saw Wilson coming to a pause, and the 
 fulfilment of the expectation raised a sense of the 
 
152 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 ridiculous even in Wilson's grandest passages. His per- 
 verse emphasis — on "this," and "and," and "of," and 
 other insignificant words — was also very distressing to a 
 sensitive ear. 
 
 We asked De Quincey about Wordsworth's personal 
 appearance. His figure, he said, was bad, and his walk- 
 ing "sidling," he did not keep his own line of path. 
 Wordsworth thanked God that there was only one man 
 in England he would go out of his way to see, namely, 
 Belzoni. De Quincey remarked on the beggarly idea of 
 renown Wordsworth entertained in regarding as nothing 
 all the intellect and worth of England as compared with 
 a man seven feet high, who could walk about with a 
 living pyramid on his shoulders. Wordsworth's scorn of 
 public opinion was excessive. It v/as not superciliousness, 
 but an almost inhuman scorn. This was a natural re- 
 action of the abuse he suffered early. He (De Quincey) 
 had, he said, on one occasion to show the honours of the 
 vale of Grasmere to a French visitor, and was greatly 
 diverted by Wordsworth's and the Frenchman's almost 
 unconcealed contempt for each other. Wordsworth's 
 feeling was on account of the French revolution, and 
 from a neglect and scorn of strangers in general ; and 
 the Frenchman's feeling arose from his having derived 
 all his ideas of Wordsworth from the Edinburgh Review, 
 and regarding him as the very imbecile pf literature. 
 " Nothing," De Quincey remarked, " could be more 
 unfortunate than the titles given to Wordsworth's larger 
 poems. The argument of the ' Excursion ' has nothing 
 to do with the accident of the excursion that gives its 
 name to the poem. Then the ' Prelude ' as a name 
 equally inappropriate. He designed it as the opening of 
 a great poem, but as the great poem was never finished, 
 the ' Prelude ' stands as an opening to nothing. The chief 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 53 
 
 weakness of the ' Excursion ' lies in the commonplace 
 nature of its religious sentiment — nothing higher than 
 what you might hear intelligent old women talk on such 
 subjects." 
 
 Of Mrs. Crowe as a writer he expressed great ad- 
 miration, especially as to her power in arranging plots. 
 Her machinery was coarse — a murder — but the ingenuity 
 with which in " Men and Women " she distributes the 
 suspicion of the murder between four or five persons 
 was most masterly. 
 
 He spoke highly of Southey ; his strict honour and 
 good-nature, and mentioned his feeling of humiliation in 
 having his articl es in the Quarterly altered by Gifford. 
 De Quincey said Lamb was one of the most loving and 
 delightful of men ; Southey one of the most estimable. 
 
 We talked of Hannah More. De Quincey's mother 
 built a house near Hannah More's for the express 
 pleasure of enjoying her society. De Quincey himself, 
 though not admiring her, was of course compelled to 
 tolerate her. The Mores were six maiden sisters, the 
 youngest sixty, and the eldest eighty. Miss More's 
 manner was very ladylike and refined, and her sisters 
 were very nice women, " but eaten up with the cant of 
 Methodism." Remarking on Sheridan's giving Wilber- 
 force's name instead of his own when found lying drunk, 
 De Quincey went on to picture Wilberforce's horror at 
 having in succession all the seven deadly sins fastened 
 down upon him by similar imputations. Hannah More 
 was ignorant of Wordsworth's merits as a poet till she 
 was struck with the extracts from the " Excursion " given 
 in the Edinburgh Review. She could not believe that 
 these noble Miltonic lines had been written by a man 
 whom the reviewers had been assailing for years. " Of 
 course," said De Quincey, " I had too mean an opinion 
 
154 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 of Miss More's intellectual powers to have condescended 
 to indicate Wordsworth's abilities to her." 
 
 Of Moore's Byron he spoke as a miserable piece of 
 biography, slovenly and slight. With the materials 
 Moore might have made an admirable Life. 
 
 On one occasion we had a conversation on the chances 
 of long life. De Quincey said it had been observed that 
 people had not the same chance of long life if one or 
 other of their parents had not attained it. " Now, as my 
 mother survived till she was nearly a hundred, I fear that 
 I shall be compelled to drag out existence to a protracted 
 period, and I look forward with horror to being left help- 
 less, a burden and trouble to others." I reminded him 
 that as his mother had retained all her faculties, he had 
 the best hopes of doing so also. " True," he replied, 
 " but she was one of the most temperate of beings, living 
 a pure and gentle life. Now, I have tampered so much 
 with opium, and tried my mind and health in so many 
 ways, that I cannot look for a like immunity from the 
 natural ills of age" I referred him to my uncle as an 
 example of cheerful and contented old age, with full 
 possession of all the faculties. 
 
 2nd December, 1854. — Called on De Quinceyat Lothian 
 Street, and found him seated in bed, dressed in a flannel 
 vest with sleeves, and his bed covered with books, papers, 
 etc. He apologised for so receiving me ; said he seldom 
 rose till four or five ; for though uncomfortable every- 
 where, he was less uncomfortable in bed than anywhere 
 else. I asked him if he had heard from his daughters; 
 He said not lately, and that he could not expect to do 
 so, for he had not written to them, or rather he had never 
 despatched his letters to them — for he ^a:^ written many 
 — and that there were probably thirty or forty pages of 
 unsent notes to them lying somewhere about his room. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. IS5 
 
 I mentioned Ferrier's " Institutes of Metaphysics," just 
 published. De Quincey said he had the highest possible 
 opinion of Ferrier's powers of thinking ; but that he could 
 not from Ferrier's letters comprehend his system, and 
 was anxious to see his book, in the hope that it would 
 make the matter clearer.* 
 
 We spoke of the remarkable change that had recently 
 been gradually wrought in toleration of freedom of 
 thought on religious subjects. De Quincey said he tried 
 thirty years ago to get a bookseller to accept a 
 translation of Strauss, but that everybody shrank from 
 it. "But now, Strauss is not only translated but 
 patronised, talked about, and introduced into society, 
 like a tiger into a drawing-room." He spoke of a 
 professor of heterodox opinions in this country having 
 been in the position of a man seeing a crowd with angry 
 eyes on every side of him.j 
 
 ind March, 1855. — Misses Florence and Emily de 
 Quincey were at an evening party with us last night, and 
 they were to stay over to-day. I asked Mr. de Quincey, 
 who was staying in Lothian Street, to come down to 
 dinner at five, or in the evening. He sent word that he 
 would come at six ; then a note. It was as follows : — 
 
 " Friday, 2d March. 
 "My dear Sir, — It struck me, as a casuist, that an 
 answer almost rude, which should not keep your mes- 
 senger waiting, must be preferable in your eyes to any 
 answer more entirely ceremonious, that should occupy 
 
 * When Ferrier was a candidate for the Chair of Moral Philo- 
 sophy in Edinburgh, De Quincey wrote a testimonial for him ; a 
 highly characteristic production — a disquisition in the form of a 
 testimonial — which may be seen by the curious in the collection of 
 such documents in the Advocates' Library. 
 
 t See Appendix B, 
 
156 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 the time of your servant at an hour when perhaps it 
 would be most in request. The rudeness I should have 
 left to heal itself. But it strikes me suddenly that I may 
 have left room for a misconstruction, or rather for a 
 suspicion upon your part of a misconstruction upon mine. 
 By saying that I would come down at six, it is just 
 possible that I may .seem to have misread your dinner- 
 hour, as being six instead of five. This is not the case. 
 I meant to say that I would come immediately after 
 dinner ; which now, on revising my plan, I will assume 
 to be nearly seven. Having no paper accessible at this 
 moment, I use a fragment of your own note. — Ever, my 
 dear Sir, your obliged, 
 
 "Thomas de Quincey." 
 
 He came and remained talking with my uncle and the 
 rest till eleven. I had to leave early for my night's 
 work. Talking of Wordsworth's Ginde to the Lakes, De 
 Quincey said that on its original publication he offered 
 Wordsworth an account of the origin and character of 
 the language of the Lake district, which unlocked all its 
 peculiar nomenclature ; but " Wordsworth, who never 
 liked to be obliged to anybody for anything, declined it 
 in his usual haughty and discourteous manner, and it 
 was ultimately published in a Kendal newspaper." * 
 
 2nd May, 1 85 5. — Called on De Quincey at Lothian 
 Street. Found him in his room, with a small glass half 
 filled with liquor of the colour of pale port, and a phial 
 of undiluted laudanum beside it on the table, which was 
 covered as usual with books and papers. He complained 
 of pain in his left arm which, as he described it, seemed 
 like rheumatism. It prevented his sleeping, and, un- 
 
 • No doubt in the Westmoreland Gazette, of which De Quincey 
 was himself editor in 1819. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 157 
 
 fortunately, he said, laudanum had no effect on it. I 
 advised him to try chloroform, applied externally, which 
 led to some talk about chloroform. Then of vaccination, 
 and the immunity it afforded from the curse of small-pox. 
 I remarked on the fewer persons marked with small-pox 
 now to be seen in the streets. He said that it was still, 
 more noticeable some years ago in contrasting English- 
 men with foreigners, who were marked in far greater 
 proportion. I mentioned Pope's allusion to small-pox, 
 as one of the greatest curses of life, classed by him with 
 old age, in the " Rape of the Lock," and De Quincey 
 expressed surprise at his not recollecting the couplet. 
 He spoke of small-pox as a disfigurement, and said it 
 was difficult to imagine a more horrible moment than 
 that in which a once beautiful young woman, who had 
 suffered from the frightful disease, looked in her mirror 
 again for the first time. Fortunately, he said, human life 
 seldom presented in its course such fearful trials of 
 fortitude.* 
 
 i^th November, 1856. — Called on De Quincey in 
 Lothian Street about five. Found him at tea ; his 
 room littered with MSS., books, etc. ; small glass of 
 laudanum in one hand, teacup in other. I called to ask 
 him to dine with us, to meet Thackeray, on the following 
 Saturday. He said he would do his best to come, but 
 had work on hand which he must have finished this 
 week, and also that he had not been out of his house 
 since May. 
 
 Talk of his revised " Confessions," just published. On 
 my alluding to a note referring to Coleridge's opinion on 
 the famous passage in Job, " I know, etc," and to Dr. 
 Robeirt Lee being engaged in a controversy with the 
 Witness newspaper on this point, he asked me if Dr. Lee 
 * See Appendix C. 
 
IS^ THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 knew of Coleridge's opinion. I told him I had sent 
 Dr. Lee the volume of his Selections, in which the 
 passage is commented on, and that he was much pleased 
 with it. De Quincey said that the last conversation he 
 had had with Coleridge was about this very passage. 
 Coleridge had in his writings declared against the 
 commonly received opinion about it ; but De Quincey 
 having heard he had retracted, questioned him about it. 
 Sara Coleridge, his daughter, " full of talent, learning, 
 and piety — rather too much of that indeed"^ — had 
 induced him to retract, or to appear to do so, because the 
 opinions he expressed were disagreeable to the pietist 
 connection in which she moved. But the impression 
 De Quincey's conversation with him left was that 
 Coleridge had not done so sincerely, but only for peace. 
 " For myself," said De Quincey, " I should as soon 
 expect to find something about the blood of Christ 
 blurting out in the pages of Livy or Plato as an allusion 
 to immortality in this old Arabian writer." 
 
 On the Saturday a little note came from De Quincey 
 as follows : — 
 
 "My dear Sir, — On Wednesday evening I was 
 obliged to attend a party, from which I returned with a 
 most distressing affection of the chest ; and since then 
 the greater part of every day has been passed in bed. 
 To-day up to 3 o'clock I endeavoured to struggle with 
 it, but have been obliged to go to bed. I am ashamed 
 to have caused you any trouble ; but in deep sincerity I 
 am wholly disabled even for sitting up. — Pray believe 
 me your obliged 
 
 " Thomas de Quincey. 
 
 " Sai. 7.2nd November.^' 
 
 When I told Thackeray that we had hoped to get 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 59 
 
 De Quincey to come to meet him, he said he felt much 
 flattered, and that nothing would have pleased him more 
 than to have met a man whose writings he so much 
 admired. I handed him the note of apology ; he praised 
 in his quietly enthusiastic way the extreme neatness 
 of its style, and penmanship, and antique courtesy of 
 its tone. 
 
 Two other notes referring to invitations are character- 
 istic enough to be recorded. They are of dates 29th 
 January and 30th January, 1859. I was anxious to get 
 De Quincey to meet our friend Mr. Carruthers of 
 Inverness, who remembered him in old times ; and 
 wished to renew the acquaintance. The reference in the 
 fir.st letter to "Miss Jean Stark" is to his landlady's 
 sister, whose attention and devotion to him partook of 
 
 " The constant service of the antique world," 
 
 and showed strongly his power of attracting and 
 enchaining interest in all who came in contact with 
 him.* His allusions to Mr. Russel's articles explain 
 themselves ; and his final congratulation to the Scotsman 
 is in reference to Miss Isa Craig (now Mrs. Knox) 
 having just gained the prize of 50 guineas for the 
 Centenary Burns Ode offered by the Crystal Palace 
 Company. 
 
 Letter. 
 
 " You will find somewhere below, and buried in a heap of words, 
 that, to my great regret, I shall not be able to join your party 
 to-day. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — I beg your pardon for what must 
 have seemed inattention in acknowledging no sooner 
 
 * See Page's Life ; and Masson's " De Quincey." 
 
l6o THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 your kind invitation for to-day. But literally I cotild 
 not. What you were told yesterday, viz., that I had 
 gone abroad to walk, was a romantic fiction, ' pure and 
 simple,' of Miss Jean Stark's. And certainly, when her 
 ' hand was in,' she might as well have asserted that I 
 was botanising on the Himalayas — which would have 
 been conclusive, needing no more words — whereas now 
 she has left to you the labour of reading, to me of 
 explaining, that in order to meet the anxiety of my 
 publisher (who knows, or who fancies, a special benefit 
 from publishing in January), I was last night, and am 
 through this day, entangled in the very final arrears and 
 valedictory P.S. of my loth vol. The word \oth makes 
 me ashamed ; but it is Boston that is answerable, 
 Yankee Boston. I am, as it happens, unable at this 
 time to walk ; that might have been remedied by a cab ; 
 but there is a more complex hindrance from the 
 grievous defect (or default, or how shall I express it ?) of 
 an amanuensis — my youngest daughter, who otherwise 
 is my right hand, being unavoidably absent in Tipperary ; 
 and thus it is that I am embargoed triply in this anchor- 
 age of No. 42 L. Street. 
 ^ " Whilst waiting to hear from the Press, let me 
 mention that I have some half-dozen ' plaints ' against 
 Mr. Russel as regards statements of fact. One, a 
 bagatelle, arises this morning as to Lord Ripon. istly. 
 His exact nickname was Prosperity Fred. 2dly, This 
 name was given to him by Cobbett. So far I am sure ; 
 at least positive — which means obstinate, sdly, I think, 
 but am not viciously certain, that the name had no 
 special reference to any prediction ; rather, I should say, 
 to his retrospects ; to the general flattering haze with 
 which he invested his budgets, or prefatory abstracts when 
 introducing his budgets as Ch. of the Exch. Was it not 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. l6l 
 
 Pi'osp. Fred who made the discovery that Taxes 
 ' fructify ' in our pockets ? 
 
 " It must be a great satisfaction and a just ground of 
 pride to the Scotsmati establishment that a foster child 
 of their own evocation, a daughter of their own en- 
 couragement, should have had this distinguished success 
 - — being herself crowned amidst her own act of corona- 
 tion — reaping whilst she thought only of sowing. 
 
 '• I halt suddenly but unavoidably ; for the Fiend is 
 
 up from St. Andrew Sq. seeking whom 
 
 " Ever most truly yours, 
 
 " Thomas de Quincey. 
 
 " Sat. 2.()th Jan:' 
 
 The second note is as follows : — 
 
 " Sunday, yith Jan. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — Nothing is more distressing to me 
 than the being compelled by uncontrollable accidents to 
 decline what I should naturally regard as an invitation 
 alike flattering and friendly. Nine days hence you will 
 yourself understand from a letter which I will then 
 write to you, how impossible it was for me to do 
 otherwise. 
 
 " Mr. Carruthers I had a special interest in meeting 
 about 20 years ago ; if I do not greatly mistake I met 
 him — not at Prof. Wilson's house — bui in his company. 
 Since then Mr. Carruthers has written, with results 
 known to the Antipodes (who, however, continue little 
 the better for the information constantly reaching them) 
 on the Biography of Pope. Consequently, having myself 
 also troubled those waters — tho' only enough to stir up 
 the mud — I have a personal as well as a general interest 
 in him. So I should have made an effort, you may be 
 sure, to meet him. 
 
 M 
 
l62 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 " That fair Incognita who condescended to leave the 
 letter of invitation, connected herself in the strangest 
 fashion of cross-readings with the final words of my 
 dreams ; which dreams she broke up ; so that in fact I 
 have a message for her from the land of dreams, true 
 and false. 
 
 " Yours ever ; excuse the writing ; it has suddenly 
 (3 • 30) grown dark as Erebus." 
 
 It will be seen that in the sudden darkness of the 
 winter afternoon he had omitted to append his signature ; 
 •and it is, I daresay, needless to add that the explanatory 
 letter, to be written "nine days hence," never came to 
 hand. The " fair Incognita " was simply the maid who 
 had handed in my note. 
 
 For a year or two before he died, Mr. De Quincey 
 rarely moved out of doors. I called on him from time 
 to time, but have no notes of those later interviews. 
 Once Miss Jean Stark reported that he regretted he 
 could not see me, as he was particularly engaged ; and 
 the next time I went he was profuse in apologies, stating 
 that he had been in a chaos of books and manuscripts 
 and clouds of dust, searching for a missing document of 
 some importance. The confusion of this sort in which 
 he lived was marvellous. After his death Mrs. Craig 
 told me that the mass of letters and notes, many un- 
 opened, to be gone over was bewildering. In the 
 heterogeneous heap, too, stray pound notes and packages 
 of small coin, in silver and copper, were so numerous 
 as, when collected, to form a considerable sum. Some 
 of the notes were between the leaves of books ; the 
 parcels of coin had probably been handed to him as 
 change, laid aside, and forgotten. The task of looking 
 over lent 'books, and returning them to their owners. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, 163 
 
 as far as these could be discovered, was also a heavy 
 one. 
 
 During his last illness he sent for me, and I saw him 
 several times. On the last occasion I remained only a 
 few minutes, as he was extremely feeble ; yet in all his 
 weakness his wonted courtesy prompted him, on my 
 rising to leave, to deplore that, from inability to rise, or 
 even to turn fully in bed, he was unable to ring, and that 
 so I was left to show myself out. His youngest and 
 only unmarried daughter, Emily, was with him at this 
 time, and she promised to let me know if I, or any of 
 our family, could be of any service. We did not there- 
 fore risk disturbing them by sending or calling often, 
 and indeed, having had experience of his surprising 
 recoveries from previous illnesses, we were not fully 
 alive to the gravity of this one. Most unfortunately, two 
 notes which Miss de Quincey posted to me failed, 
 through being imperfectly addressed, to reach me* in 
 time. On the afternoon of the ,8th December, 1859, a 
 rumour reached me that De Quincey was dead, and I 
 hastened to Lothian Street, in some hope, however faint, 
 that rumour lied. " Is what I hear true .' " I said to the 
 kind landlady, Mrs. Wilson, who opened the door. With- 
 out answering she ushered me at once into the chamber 
 of death. On the simple uncurtained pallet, whence in 
 that last interview he had smilingly, with all those 
 delicately polite regrets, said goodbye, the tiny frame of 
 this great dreamer lay stretched in his last long dream- 
 less sleep. Attenuated to an extreme degree, the body 
 looked infantile in size — a very slender stem for the 
 shapely and massive head that crowned it. The face 
 was little changed ; its delicate bloom indeed was gone, 
 but the sweet expression lingered, and the ianely-chiselled 
 features were unaltered. I was profoundly impressed ; 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 the more so, perhaps, that, as it so happened, I had 
 never seen a dead person since I was a child of seven 
 years old. In the next room I found his tearful and 
 agitated daughters — Mrs. Craig, who had arrived a day 
 or two before, and Miss Emily. They spoke much of 
 the patience and resignation with which he suffered ; of 
 his gentleness and considerateness to the last. He 
 grudged giving them the slightest trouble, even when he 
 most required attendance. On one occasion when they 
 were moving him in bed, and lifting his feet, he, using a 
 grand generalisation in a spirit of the most profound 
 humility, and snatching, as it were, at a sacred sanction 
 for his exacting the care he needed, said, " Be gentle, be 
 tender ; remember that those are the feet that Christ 
 washed." 
 
 Ascertaining that there existed no adequate portrait 
 of Mr. de Quincey in his later years, I suggested that a 
 cast of his face should be taken. This was done by Mr. 
 (now Sir) John Steell, R.S.A. ; and from this cast, aided 
 by other materials, this eminent sculptor produced, in the 
 shape of a noble marble bust, a permanent record of the 
 strikingly intellectual and refined lineaments of " The 
 English Opium-Eater." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 16$ 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Page 124. — Mrs. Baird Smith with her daughters and Miss 
 de Quincey now live in London. To all the three daughters 
 no small share of their father's attractive intellectual qualities 
 descended ; to the eldest, perhaps, in somewhat fuller measure, 
 especially in so far as a certain fluent facility and felicity of 
 expression in talk and writing reflected, in a softer and 
 feminine fashion, the celerity of conception and copious stores- 
 of reflection and information so notable in her father. 
 
 Mrs. Baird Smith's contributions to Mr. Page's Life * of her 
 father sufiiciently indicate her fine literary faculty, and Miss 
 Emily, in the same pages, displays a like gift. 
 
 It may be permitted here to make some mention of the 
 services of Colonel Baird Smith ; service faithful unto death.. 
 The brief record on his tomb in Calcutta Cathedral is as. 
 follows : — 
 
 Colonel Richard Baird Smith, of the Bengal Engineers, Master 
 of the Calcutta Mint, C.B., and A.D.C. to the Queen, whose career, 
 crowded with brilliant service, cut short at its brightest, was 
 born at Lasswade on December 31, 1818. He went to India in 
 1836. Already distinguished in the two Sikh Wars, his conduct 
 on the outbreak of revolt in 1857 showed what a clear apprehen- 
 sion, a stout heart, and a hopeful spirit could effect with scanty 
 means in crushing disorder. Called to Delhi as chief engineer, 
 his bold and ready judgment, his weighty and tenacious counsels, 
 played a foremost part in securing the success of the siege and 
 England's supremacy. The gathered wisdom of many years spent 
 in administering the Irrigation of Upper India, trained him for his 
 crowning service— the survey of the great famine of 1861, the 
 
 * " Thomas de Quincey : his Life and Writings," by H. A. Page. 
 Two vols. London, 1877. 
 
l66 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 provision of relief, and the suggestions of safeguards against such 
 calamities. Broken by accumulated labours, he died at sea, 
 December 13, 1861, aged scarcely forty-three years. At Madras, 
 where his Indian career began, his body awaits the resurrection. 
 
 There may be added, in correction of a misapprehension as 
 to his share in the work at Delhi, the following from Colonel 
 Malleson's " History of the Indian Mutiny of 1857." 
 
 "Major Baird Smith, an honour even to the corps of engineers 
 .... was chief engineer of the army before Delhi, and brought to 
 the performance of his duties the large mind, the profound know- 
 ledge, the prompt decision, which had characterised him in his 
 civil work. Neither the shock and pain caused by a wound, nor 
 the weakness and emaciation produced by a severe attack of camp 
 scurvy, aggravated by diarrhoea, depressed his spirits or lessened 
 his energies. Refusing to be placed on the sick list, though assured 
 that mortification would be the result of a continued use of this 
 wounded leg, Baird Smith clung to the last to the performance of 
 his duty. The advice which he gave to General Wilson proved 
 that never was his courage higher, never were the tone and temper 
 of his mind more healthy, than when, bowed down by two diseases, 
 and suffering acutely from his wound, he seemed a livid wreck of 
 the man he once had been. It was to such a man that Wilson 
 appealed. The answer was clear, emphatic, and decisive. Baird 
 Smith was for action, for prompt and immediate action." 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Page 155. — His daughters were at this time in Ireland, and 
 though very ill he was reluctant to huiTy them home. His 
 condition seemed so serious that I felt it a duty to force his 
 hand so to speak, and of the results he gives the following 
 account in a letter to Miss Florence : — 
 
 December 8, 1854. My DEAREST FLORENCE, — This morning — 
 viz., Monday, December 4 — came into my hands your letter and 
 Emily's appendix. I had, however, previously possessed myself of 
 a pen, and was in visionary conceit tracing out, whilst yet unaware 
 of any communication from Tipperary, that letfer which now, three 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. iSj 
 
 hours later, I am actually writing. The fact is, I am alarmed at 
 the premature explosion of a train which I had laid on Saturday 
 (December and) for drawing your attention in a leisurely way to 
 Mavis Bush. The match has ignited the train far sooner than I 
 had counted on. And thus it is possible enough that you may be 
 thrown into needless hurry. It had happened that on Saturday, 
 the 2nd, Mr. Findlay called, as sometimes he is kind enough to do, 
 and on my explaining the general course of my correspondence 
 with you — viz., that I write a letter — parboil it, as you may say, 
 i.e., half-finish it, then order it, in the House of Commons phrase, 
 " to lie on the table," during which repose several strata of other 
 papers gather over it within a few days or hours, so that very soon 
 it is " snowed up," and finally it withdraws into darkness. Hearing 
 this, I say, Mr. Findlay kindly undertook to apprise you, or M. or 
 E.,how the matter stood, and that the time was drawing near when 
 I should want various papers (now at Mavis Bush) for the fifth 
 volume. This service I counted on his fulfilling, about four or five 
 days later. But behold ! yesterday being Sunday, the very next 
 succeeding day he called with a Times newspaper, and at the same 
 time left a note informing me that he already had written — viz. not 
 to any one of you three, but to Mr. Craig. I am anxious, there- 
 fore, as the train is actually fired, to intercept any evil consequences. 
 I announce, therefore, that, if you could set off ten or eleven days 
 from this, i.e., about the i8th day of December, you will meet the 
 most clamorous of my purposes. You see there are counter-perils 
 to weigh off against the perils of procrastination. I declare it will 
 be a lesson to me for the rest of my life not to hurry. 
 
 The Times contained a review of his works. A month after 
 this he was again alarmingly ill — See Page, vol. ii. p. 94. 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Page 157. — There is a lapse here in my notes which may be 
 appropriately supplied by a notice by De Quincey himself of 
 one of his visits to my uncle's house. In a letter addressed to 
 his daughters of date July 31, 1855, the following passage 
 occurs : — 
 
 Last week, viz., on Thursday, the 26th of July, I dinea by invita- 
 tion with a small party— z««« only— at Mr. Ritchie's in George 
 
1 68 ■ THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Square. Mr. Ritchie and his family have been very kind in their 
 attentions to me. But, to finish my story of the dinner-party, — on 
 entering the drawing-room, inquiries buzzed about me as to your 
 whereabouts and intentions with regard to the homeward route, 
 &c. ; and upon my answering that I had reason to look for you 
 (speaking nautically) "in all Augttst" somebody said, "We 
 understand, Mr. de Ouincey, you are going to lose another of your 
 daughters." This arose naturally out of a previous inquiry about 
 M. and the chances of her coming over to England ; but it took me 
 so far by surprise that 1 did not know how to treat it, for I was not 
 certain as to F.'s own wishes on this point. However, I said, 
 smiling, that such a rumour was certainly current. "Aye, but it's 
 more than a rumour," said Mr. Russel, the editor of the Scotsman; 
 and then it came out that on the morning of this very Thursday a 
 son of Lord Dunfermline's, one of the Abercrombies. who is now 
 by accident on a visit to Edinburgh, had announced the news as 
 highly probable. He is our British Minister at Turin ; and it had 
 so happened, that when Colonel Baird Smith was studying the 
 system of irrigation in the King of Sardinia's Continental dominions 
 (Piedmont, &c.), he was invited to take up his quarters in the 
 hotel of our English Legation, which he did, and thus became 
 intimately acquainted with Sir Ralph, for I believe that this son of 
 Lord D.'s is the one known as Sir Ralph A. So that here is at 
 once an end to all further secrecy, it you had any wish for it. On 
 this occasion, by the way, as previously at Mr. J. B.'s, I found all 
 persons loud in the praise of Colonel Baird Smith. 
 
 Sir Ralph, it may be noted, was the only son of the first 
 Lord Dunfermline (James Abercrombie, Speaker of the House 
 of Commons) ; he succeeded his father as second Lord Dun- 
 fermline, and dying without male issue, with him the title 
 became extinct. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. ' 1 69 
 
 DAYS AND NIGHTS WITH THOMAS 
 DE QUINCEY. 
 
 By JAMES HOGG. 
 
 Our First Interview. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1850, forty-five years ago, that I 
 first made the acquaintance of De Quincey at Edin- 
 burgh ; the same day on which he first met my father. 
 It happened thus : At that time I was serving my 
 apprenticeship as an editor on The Weekly Instructor. 
 For four years I had been my father's, associate in the 
 management of that periodical — a task which gradually 
 devolved on me entirely as regards the editorial work. 
 
 The magazine was for a time " composed " (to use the 
 technical phrase) in one part of Edinburgh and printed 
 off in another — at a suburb called Canonmills. There 
 had been a serious break-down of machinery, which 
 threatened to interfere with publication, and engineers 
 were summoned to repair the accident. 
 
 I was in our office, near the college, when I was told 
 that a gentleman waited to see me who had enquired 
 earlier in the day where my father could be seen, and 
 now returned with a message from him. 
 
 On going forward I saw De Quincey for the first time, 
 but could not gather who the visitor was. He informed 
 me, in a quiet, gentle way, that he had been to this 
 
I/O THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 office in the forenoon, but on finding that my father had 
 gone to Canonmills, had walked down there. 
 
 He produced from one pocket of an " Inverness " cape 
 a small roll of manuscript, and from the other a little 
 brush with a handle. Opening the roll and carefully 
 brushing each sheet as he handed it to me, he added 
 that he proposed to contribute to The Instmctor, and 
 had arranged concerning this manuscript. So saying, 
 he handed me the leaves of " The Sphinx's Riddle." 
 Then he produced from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of 
 paper on which my father had hastily pencilled an 
 instruction to hand Mr. de Quincey a sum named. I 
 instantly realised the position and the status of the new 
 contributor. 
 
 Seeing he looked tired, I invited him to walk in and 
 rest in an inner room beside my desk. There I alt once 
 complied with his wishes as to money, and received him 
 with a sympathy and respect which I think won his 
 grateful regard. I did not need to be told anything 
 about " the English Opium-Eater." 
 
 In those days I was in the swim amongst a number 
 of enthusiastic collegians — young literary aspirants, 
 lawyers, and medicos — all pressing forward in various 
 walks of hfe. 
 
 Although these ardent spirits did not exactly realise 
 Sydney Smith's humorous description of the early 
 Edinburgh Reviewers, as "cultivating literature on a 
 little oatmeal " (a motto proposed and condemned 
 because it was too near the truth) — still, there was a 
 good deal of " plain living and high thinking " amongst 
 a group of young men who, later on, won both fame 
 and pudding. 
 
 We studied Dante and Goethe, talked Carlylese, 
 reviewed the reviewers, and were always ready for some 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, 171 
 
 literary exploit — discussing, without hesitation, any sub- 
 ject under the sun, and appraising " celebi'ities " accord- 
 ing to our own sweet fancy. Nothing came amiss. It 
 was all very glowing and somewhat dogmatic, but with 
 a fine flush of genuine enthusiasm and buoyancy which 
 has made marks here and there over the world. I was 
 thus well primed as to the famous "Confessions," and 
 delighted to have an opportunity of chatting with their 
 distinguished author. 
 
 De Quincey, as he rested, began to expatiate on the 
 subject of the paper which he had just placed in my 
 hands. " The Sphinx's Riddle," it will be remembered, 
 he treats as a " double riddle," and in it are some of 
 the most impassioned passages he ever wrote. For the 
 moment, the ancient mystery oh which his mind had 
 been dwelling seemed to possess him. Time slipped 
 away as he discoursed with fervour on the grandeur and 
 gloom of that old-world story, and more than an hour 
 elapsed before he arose, refreshed, to resume his home- 
 ward walk. We took to each other from that first 
 moment of acquaintance. 
 
 Personal Characteristics. 
 
 I have often been asked, both orally and by letter, 
 whether I could give anxious admirers some idea of 
 De Quincey's most remarkable facial characteristics, and 
 wherein lay the peculiar charm of his manner which 
 common report has certainly not exaggerated. 
 
 This is an extremely difficult question to answer. I 
 may say, however, that no one who has sat for hours 
 close beside him, as I have so often done, could fail to 
 
172 THOMAS DE QUINCEY.: 
 
 be struck by the strange depth of the eye. It seemed 
 fathomless. I have never observed this in so high a 
 degree in any other person. Then there was the gentle, 
 refined, fastidious manner, chording so well with the 
 beautifully chiselled features. Lastly, there was the 
 soft, rhythmic utterance, as if the procession of words 
 had long been duly marshalled — all fit for duty. How- 
 ever fantastic the thought that was being expressed, the 
 exquisite cadence lent a singular charm to the most 
 grotesque idea. 
 
 De Quincey was a keen, omnivorous reader of the 
 newspapers, and often dwelt upon reports of scenes, 
 pathetic or brutal, which moved his pity or indignation. 
 As he commented on such things the slight frame would 
 quiver and the melodious voice would vibrate with a 
 richer and more organ-like swell, often inexpressibly 
 touching. 
 
 When in good " form " De Quincey had a recurring 
 vein of exquisite jocularity ; he was fond of a sort of 
 refined " rigmarole." 
 
 I could generally foretell when he was about to 
 indulge in this pastime. He would give himself a sharp 
 pinch in the arm, as if he were an organist pulling out 
 some stop. Things political in the newspaper, absurd 
 police cases, whimsical wills, and such like material, he 
 would take up and polish off in a bantering fashion. 
 
 De Quincey once suffered weeks of perfect agony as 
 the result of his unfailing politeness. We are told that 
 " the lofty Essex doffed his bonnet to the meanest apple- 
 woman at her stall." In this same spirit De Quincey 
 was always thoughtfully, studiously polite and kindly 
 to every one m.inistering in the slightest degree to his 
 wants. Miss Stark, the very tall and rather shy sister of 
 his widowed landlady at Lothian Street, had never been 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1/3 
 
 able quite to throw off, even when she had arrived at 
 mature years, an excessive nervousness of manner. She 
 was greatly devoted to De Quincey, studying, to the 
 best of her ability, all his little whims ; whilst he on his 
 part did all in his power to mitigate the almost painful 
 anxieties of his attendant. This led to. the catastrophe. 
 
 Having rung the bell during his solitary dinner, he 
 had in a dreamy mood been quite oblivious of the act, 
 and inattentive to a gentle tap at the door. He had 
 just taken up a morsel of potato when he observed the 
 wistful face of Miss Stark in the doorway. She had 
 feared some sudden indisposition. Startled at his own 
 forgetfulness, unwilling alike to replace the food on his 
 plate or keep his anxious attendant any longer waiting 
 for orders, he bolted the potato. " Like the Spartan 
 boy, I swallowed it," he told me afterwards. 
 
 The consequences were exceedingly painful. The 
 potato was extremely hot, and the whole passage to the 
 stomach was severely scalded. So acute was the pain 
 that for weeks he dreaded the act of swallowing either 
 food or drink. I was very apprehensive of some serious 
 result, such as ulceration, and begged him to allow me 
 to obtain medical advice. But no, this he would not 
 permit. With a smile he again and again referred to 
 " the Spartan boy," bore the brunt of his extreme polite- 
 ness with the most exemplary patience, and gradually 
 threw off the ill effects. 
 
 An amusing specimen of the interest De Quincey 
 took in small people generally I once witnessed in these 
 same lodgings. A handy little girl, niece, I believe, to 
 the landlady, was accustomed to ofificiate in aid of Miss 
 Stark, as it was observed that De Quincey liked the 
 child. They called her Ellen at the place, but De 
 Quincey discovered that she had been christened Helen. 
 
1/4 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 One evening as she brought in tea in the twilight, De 
 Quincey, who sat dreaming in the glow of the iire, 
 suddenly opened his eyes, and thus solemnly addressed 
 the little maid : 
 
 " My dear child, let no one on earth defraud you of 
 your noble name. You bear one of the grandest names 
 that woman can bear. You are not Ellen, but ^elen. 
 Think of your ancestress of Troy, and never allow any 
 human being to call you other than Helen." With a 
 strong aspiration of the " H " the oracle ceased. 
 
 The poor child nearly dropped her cups and saucers 
 as she opened her eyes wide and stared fixedly during 
 this strange admonition. Although tolerably well ac- 
 customed to Mr. de Quincey's ways, no doubt she went 
 out and reported that the old gentleman had at last 
 " gane clean daft." 
 
 Of all the subjects which exercised a permanent fasci- 
 nation over De Quincey, I would place first in order 
 Thuggism in India and the Cagots of Spain and France. 
 The Thugs gave rise to endless speculation. There was 
 a good series once on the subject in one of the leading 
 magazines (Blackwood's, I think) which afforded him 
 material for ever-recurring study. The far-reaching 
 power of this mysterious brotherhood, the swiftness and 
 certainty of its operations, the strange gradations of 
 official rank, and the curious disguises adopted — all 
 these exercised an influence on his mind which seemed 
 never to wane. Every authentic detail he examined 
 with the closest attention. 
 
 In like manner the Cagots — the lepers of France and 
 Spain — excited his deep pity. Many times he would 
 draw word-pictures to me of the sad, touching scenes 
 which must have been witnessed by half-scared wor- 
 shippers^-the wistful, wasting figures preparing to enter 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. ^ 175 
 
 church by the Cagots' door, of which specimens are still 
 to be found in the Pyrenean churches.* 
 
 Interwoven with these two subjects there arose some- 
 times, on the spur of the moment, wailing passages of 
 almost unearthly beauty and pathos, unsurpassed by 
 anything in the " Suspiria," and never reduced to writing 
 by either of us. I can only now remember the weird 
 power of these strange glimpses of his inner life, as the 
 melodious voice of my companion seemed to lift me, by 
 some magic, far away from the dimly-lit room to behold 
 scenes which no Dante has ever described. 
 
 If only I had taken notes of some of these things 
 when memory was green ! Need I say that I regret 
 such lost opportunities ? Sometimes in the night-watches 
 stray, fleeting memories drift across me, but I feel unable 
 to catch the whole so as to present a faithful report. 
 
 However large the table might be at which De 
 Quincey sat when at work, he invariably wrote at the 
 very extremity of one corner if a square one, or as far 
 as possible from the centre if of other shape. The 
 remainder would be piled with manuscripts, news- 
 papers, and books in admirable disorder. I suppose, like 
 many literary men with their "papers," he had some 
 secret arrangement in the way he put some of these 
 things down. Any sudden attempt to move them in the 
 least seemed to impart a little nervous shock to the 
 owner. 
 
 At Lothian Street Miss Stark had to be very careful, 
 
 * I was forcibly reminded of these old conversations by a recent 
 visit to that ancient and beautiful edifice — the Priory Church of 
 Christ Church, near the New Forest. There we still see the 
 Lepers' Chapel, and the orifice in the massive wall through which 
 the officiating Priest conveyed the consecrated bread on a cleft 
 stick to the poor sufferer in Pre-Reformation times — whose out- 
 stretched hand alone was visible to him. 
 
176 THOMAS DE QUINCEY i 
 
 when the time approached for a meal, to obtain spe- 
 cial permission as to what she might touch out of the 
 queerly-assorted heap. 
 
 De Quincey would gaze with a sort of anxious, affec- 
 tionate, almost frightened look upon his MS. treasures, 
 sometimes merging into a smile if I ventured on a jocular 
 remark about these valuables. This would be followed 
 by a grave reminder that in order not to delay the press, 
 it was absolutely necessary (here a variety of amusing 
 contingencies would be stated) that any slip, or note, or 
 matter not yet forwarded to the printer, should be per- 
 fectly within reach of his hand at a single moment's 
 notice. Perchance, if by any misfortune or error he had 
 to commence a laborious search for such " missing link," 
 the effort might be too great for his strength, and in the 
 consequent reaction the manuscript or proof in hand 
 might be irretrievably injured. 
 
 However solemnly this might be delivered, he would 
 almost invariably look up with just the faintest smile 
 and twinkle of the eye, as much as to say, " Do you 
 really believe it all ? " or, " Will it not be all the same a 
 hundred years hence ? " 
 
 Another very grotesque thing was the famous brushy 
 often carried about in his pocket. This was a most 
 important part of the literary equipment, nearly as much 
 so as the pen, ink, and paper. It was an instrument 
 about ten inches long all told, the fine bristles about two 
 inches in length, and with a short handle. In some 
 respects it seemed to fulfil the office of a fan with a lady. 
 In pauses of conversation he would solace himself by 
 taking a page of manuscript from the table and carefully 
 brushing it, holding the paper first one way, and then 
 the other. After a thorough scrubbing in perhaps three 
 positions, the leaf was carefully replaced beside others. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. \^^ 
 
 with an air of satisfaction and an evident increase of 
 serenity. 
 
 This process was generally gone through with every 
 separate leaf of manuscript which he might happen to 
 give me for the press. One by one they were taken up, 
 put through the positions, and one by one committed 
 to my hands, with a grave upward glance to see how I 
 was getting on. 
 
 I used to be very patient, for it was all very amusing. 
 He did not mind a bit my evident desire to have some 
 sport about the practice. 
 
 Sometimes a page bearing a special smudge, or one 
 showing an unusual amount of interlineation, seemed to 
 require particular treatment. After it had received extra 
 polish, and still remained in his grasp, the brush upraised 
 for another flourish, I would suggest, " That one will do 
 now." When this happened, he always gave in gently 
 and in the most gracious manner, with a single final 
 touch. 
 
 Kant and his Garter Machine. 
 
 During the progress of his works through the press, 
 when the author was at Mavis Bush Cottage, I had to 
 be a frequent visitor, eitlier with proof-sheets, or on some 
 matter connected with the enterprise. 
 
 After dining with the family, or going over press 
 matters with De Quincey alone, he would often insist on 
 walking with me from Lasswade to Edinburgh — a dis- 
 tance of some five or six miles. As we did noJt start, 
 perhaps, until 1 1 P.M., or later, and walked at a slow, 
 steady pace, it would often be nearly I o'clock A.M. 
 before we reached the Newington toil-bar, which was our 
 
 N 
 
178 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 general point of separation. De Quincey would then 
 walk back alone. At first I felt anxious, fearing some 
 danger might arise from these solitary rambles — perhaps 
 a passing weakness which might make him succumb to 
 cold, with no one at hand to assist. But when I found 
 how greatly he enjoyed such excursions, and, moreover, 
 -was in the habit of taking them alone, I ceased to 
 'demur. 
 
 I may say that I had one faculty — I was a good 
 listener. In these long, slow, swinging walks, some- 
 ■times by moonlight, sometimes by starlight, sometimes 
 stumbling against each other in the blank darkness, I 
 heard "all things in heaven and earth" passed in review. 
 
 One thing which often came up in these rambles was 
 Kant and his apparatus in lieu of garters. 
 
 De Quincey, as is well known, was the first real 
 English exponent of the Kantian philosophy, and he 
 was well up in all the personal peculiarities of this 
 singular being. 
 
 Kant, amongst other studies in the art of taking care 
 of himself, avoided ordinary garters. He permitted no 
 ligature to be placed on any part of his body, fearing 
 to hinder in the slightest degree the circulation of the 
 blood. 
 
 He found it necessary at the same time to keep up 
 his stockings. Accordingly he had loops attached to 
 them, and outside each hip he wore a contrivance which 
 may be called a box windlass (as I understood it). 
 These affairs somewhat resembled an angler's reel with 
 a spring, which secured the line at any given point. 
 
 Behold Kant then expounding his philosophy to a 
 select circle of disciples. Like the famous counsel who 
 could not state his argument without twisting a bit of 
 twine, Kant worked the windlasses as he talked. The 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, 1 79 
 
 idea of this grotesque practice so tickled De QuincCy" 
 that he often dwelt on the odd sight which it must have 
 been to observe the master " paying out the cable," or 
 hauling in " the slack," by aid of this curious machinery. 
 
 I remember nothing which afforded De Quincey such 
 frequent and intense amusement. The darker the night, 
 I observed, the more surely did Kant and his garter- 
 machine come above-aboard as we swung along. 
 
 After some quizzical remarks on German metaphysics 
 generally, off went the quiet, melodious voice, with its 
 clear, resonant timbre, into some queer byway of scholar- 
 ship. There would be a flash of some long-forgotten 
 spark of wit, some curious passage would be quoted, 
 which the retentive memory had treasured for half a 
 century, and Kant and his garters would be forgotten 
 until next time. 
 
 Our Lantern. 
 
 This article to which my father alludes in his " Remi- 
 niscences " (Page's Life), was an amusing apparatus. 
 
 Near Mavis Bush there was a streamlet, some feeder 
 or offshoot of the Esk. It lay on the route to Edin- 
 burgh, at a rather twistical sort of corner, the ground at 
 that part being of an up and down character. On dark 
 nights, with no glimmer of moon or star, it was easy- 
 enough for a pedestrian with all his wits about him to 
 wander into this water and get an unpleasant wetting. 
 This had happened to De Quincey on several occasions 
 on his late and solitary peregrinations, and after much 
 cogitation a " bull's eye '' was procured. But this proved 
 an irksome and faithless friend. 
 
 On the journeys when De, Quincey accompanied me 
 
 N 2 
 
l8o THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 to Newington toll-bar, we did not use it whilst together, 
 joint wisdom being supposed equal to piloting us safely 
 round the dangerous point. The lantern was the reserve 
 force for the homeward journey. It was lit as we parted 
 at the toll-house, and off De Quincey marched. 
 
 I could spy the beam of light, like some far-off glow- 
 worm, as I looked backward on the long straight road. 
 But that vile lantern always vrent out just as the traveller 
 approached the trying spot. After being carried for 
 miles, it proved totally useless at " the supreme moment," 
 as De Quincey put it. I suggested a larger reservoir, a 
 little more oil, etc., as a ready solution. No ; he had 
 got tired of such a worrying companion, and preferred 
 to face the difficulty aided only by that natural instinct 
 of which we are all supposed to possess some share, 
 whether savage or civilized, 
 
 De Quincey on Opium, 
 
 As may be supposed, during those memorable years I 
 listened to innumerable disquisitions on the power of the 
 drug — its pleasures and its pains. It seemed to be a 
 mental relief to retrace in the hearing of a quiet, patient 
 listener the far back steps, from the first moment of 
 indulgence on to that later moment which gave rise to 
 the sad exclamation, " Thrice I rose and thrice I fell ! " 
 
 He was never tired of declaring lo me the opinion 
 noted in the Collected Works, that the medical faculty 
 would wake up at last to a sense of the beneficent power 
 of opium in cases of incipient consumption, before the 
 physical derangement has gone too far to be arrested. 
 He dwelt continually on its sovereign power for main- 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. l8l 
 
 taining insensible perspiration, so invaluable when pre- 
 monitory symptoms give warning of phthisical danger. 
 
 During the rigour of the bitter Scottish winters I 
 suffered a good deal in the chest. The keen, cutting 
 east wind of Edinburgh exposed me to frequent and 
 severe attacks of catarrh, so that for weeks I continued 
 in a state of misery from this cause. De Quincey pitied 
 me much, and as he took his own dose, liquid or solid, 
 often told me that my enemy could be attacked and the 
 discomfort speedily alleviated by some small doses. 
 
 I had, however, an invincible dread of the potent drug, 
 and never once tasted it. Seeing my feeling, about the 
 matter, he ceased to offer any advice on the subject. I 
 had to fight it out on the orthodox gruel principle. 
 One distinguished old Edinburgh practitioner, then 
 President of the College of Surgeons, whom my father 
 consulted for my benefit, curtly and gruffly said, " Take 
 his dinner off him ! " Ever afterwards I looked on that 
 man as a despot. I took the "grand cure" which so 
 many Scotsmen find efficacious. I migrated southward, 
 and left Edinburgh for London. 
 
 The Uneducated Bug. 
 
 One very droll thing rises to my memory which, I 
 think, is too good to be lost. Over-sensitive people, like 
 the spinster who desired to have the " legs " of a table 
 called " limbs," are invited to skip this passage and 
 imagine a blank space. 
 
 There is a certain unpleasant insect known to the 
 British householder called — a bug. Once De Quincey 
 spied one in his room, and it filled him with unspeakable 
 alarm^so he said. 
 
1 82 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 I was called upon once, twice, thrice, perhaps oftener, 
 to consider seriously with him the terrible possibilities 
 of the danger with which he was thus suddenly con- 
 fronted. " The Vision of Sudden Death " in The Mail- 
 Coach, or living in a Swiss village about to be buried by 
 ail avalanche — these and such like things were mere 
 trifles, ordinary accidents of life, when compared with 
 the new and awful calamity which threatened. 
 
 " Suppose," he said, " that this wretched insect has a 
 companion, and that this companion, relative or other- 
 wise, should, unknown to me, force its way to the canopy 
 of my bed. And suppose that I may be asleep, and in 
 an unguarded moment — a moment of dreams — I should 
 suddenly open my mouth ever so little (which, by-the- 
 way, is quite against my usual practice), and suppose 
 that this poor foolish bug, whose education has most 
 probably been grossly neglected by its parents, should 
 at that instance of time be right overhead, and in a care- 
 less moment relax its hold and — tumble ! Oh, horror, 
 can you imagine anything more revolting ? " 
 
 This charming, impassioned picture, so powerfully 
 drawn by the hand of a master, at first nearly sent me 
 into a fit with laughter. I believe this was part of the 
 effect which was intended to be produced, for he seemed 
 to enjoy the merriment, recalling me quickly, however, 
 to the extreme gravity of the case. 
 
 " Well," I said, " the thing of course is possible, and 
 when I go home I shall get out De Moivre ' On Chances,' 
 and work out the problem for you. Given one bug 
 only, the chances are enormously in your favour. Of 
 course, if there should be a procession of bugs out on 
 their travels, like so many Canterbury pilgrims, I admit 
 at once that the case would be very different indeed. 
 It might become serious. However, . let us hope that 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 83 
 
 this fellow you saw was what the Germans call 'a 
 wandering bird,' an adventurous traveller, perhaps. Or 
 perhaps he may have been a pariah, an outcast from 
 his fellows, and as such entitled to your profoundest 
 sympathy and protection. Don't you think that is 
 possible ? " 
 
 He admitted that I had calmed his fears, and possibly 
 things might not turn out so badly as at first sight 
 appeared probable. For a few weeks we had an occa- 
 sional debate on this interesting subject. It soon 
 branched into a higher department — Buffon on the 
 dreams of animals, or the nature and amount of educa- 
 tion which the inferior animals (insects, birds, etc., every- 
 thing in creation, in fact) bestow upon their offspring. 
 It was a wide and fruitful topic for discussion which was 
 thus started by the advent of the solitary and unwelcome 
 traveller. 
 
 What would the Baker Say? 
 
 When De Quincey was most depressed, there was one 
 talisman I held by which, judiciously used, I could nearly 
 always "lift" him. This was "The Baker" in the 
 famous essay on "Murder Considered as One of the- 
 Fine Arts." 
 
 We had somehow gradually established a queer sort 
 of freemasonry about this character. It is difficult to- 
 define it. Perhaps I may put it that we had elected to- 
 consider him a handy man at a pinch — a man quite free 
 from shilly-shally — always decided in his views, and 
 with a certain ready activity in asserting them. 
 
 When the fits of depression came on, and in cold 
 weather they were often long and severe (De Quincey 
 
1 84 THOMAS DE QUINXEY : 
 
 sometimes said to me that -he had never been thoroughly 
 warm all his life), I watched my chance. 
 
 When I saw that things were at the worst, when some 
 peculiarly moody, morbid observation showed the mental 
 tension and physical misery, I used to remark, rather 
 suddenly and shortly, " What would the Baker say f " 
 
 The effect was perfectly magical. The drooping head 
 was raised, the pallid face slowly wreathed into a half- 
 amused smile, which seemed to convey : " Well, that is 
 a good idea. We have not yet considered what can be 
 said and what can be done from that point of view." It 
 seemed to act as a mental tonic. After a short pause 
 he would start some subject — something often which I 
 saw he expected would make me disputatious. Gradu- 
 ally he warmed to it, and as I kept " the ball rolling " 
 by a few brisk rejoinders, or some fresh " feelers " which 
 were not difficult to find, away he went — full speed. 
 
 The original subject soon became two ; by-and-by it 
 branched and became half a dozen. The torpor and 
 depression seemed to disappear as the active, awakened 
 brain found expression through the tongue, and in two 
 or three hours I would leave him quite a new man. He 
 would afterward most gratefully acknowledge the benefit 
 which had accrued in this fashion. On the next inter- 
 view I would generally remark, " The Baker did you 
 good the other evening.'' This received a cheerful as- 
 sent, either in words or by a meaning smile. I never 
 used the charm except when we were quite alone. A 
 third person, I think, would have spoilt it. 
 
 ^^ 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 85 
 
 Passion for the Violin. 
 
 Whilst De Quincey, as his writings show, was pro- 
 foundly impressed by the majesty and blare of the 
 organ, his favourite instrument was the violin. Hun- 
 dreds of times I must have heard him dwell with 
 impassioned force upon the capacity of the violin as a 
 musical instrument. 
 
 " There is an infinity about the violin," was his 
 favourite expression on the subject. 
 
 On many occasions he delighted me with his recol- 
 lections of famous performers who were only a name 
 to me. 
 
 Mingled with the old London operatic memories, 
 which always seems to afford him such intense pleasure, 
 there appeared to stand out clearer than all else the 
 recollection of the chief pieces played by every great 
 violinist whom he had heard. 
 
 This passion for the violin led him on one occasion, 
 and one only, so far as I can remember, to break 
 through the rule he had laid down in these latter years 
 of avoiding all public entertainments. Remenyi, the 
 famous Hungarian violinist, came to Edinburgh to per- 
 form at the Theatre Royal. I had observed the an- 
 nouncement in the newspapers, but thought nothing of 
 it, having previously heard the master in London. De 
 Quincey observed to me one evening : 
 
 " Remenyi is coming. Did you ever hear him ? " 
 
 "Yes," I replied. "I think he is the greatest per- 
 former on the instrument I have ever heard." 
 
 Next day he again brought up the subject, so I 
 hazarded the remark — 
 
 " Should you like to hear him ? " 
 
1 86 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 " Very much indeed',' he answered, " if I could only go 
 quietly, and without being troubled to see people." 
 
 " Oh, yes," I said ; " we shall get a quiet box, and you 
 need not be bothered seeing anybody." 
 
 " If you would have the goodness I should be so much 
 obliged to you',' was the grateful response. 
 
 I secured a box of which one side was well screened 
 from the house, permitting at the same time a full view 
 of the performer as he stood on the stage. 
 
 I never saw De Quincey exhibit such evidence of 
 rapturous enjoyment as he did that evening. He lay 
 back for a long time in the dark corner, as if in a trance. 
 I took care not to disturb him either by speech or 
 movement. 
 
 When the programme was far through and there was 
 a short interval, a momentary curiosity to see the 
 audience caused him to change chairs with me. In a 
 few minutes, however, observing a row of glasses levelled 
 at him (from the "' press " box, I think), he beat a hasty 
 retreat, and did not again venture to stir from the quiet 
 corner in which I had at first installed him. 
 
 For weeks that performance was a source of ever- 
 recurring pleasure. The exquisite nervous organization 
 seemed to feed upon the recollection of the glorious 
 sounds, and I was gratified by numerous critical 
 comparisons with by-gone masters of his favourite 
 instrument. 
 
 ^^ 
 De Quincey as a Practical Man. 
 
 During my editorship of Titan, to which he was a 
 frequent contributor, De Quincey often astonished me 
 by his shrewdness in the affairs of everyday life, and 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 87 
 
 his keen sense of what would be popular in magazine 
 managemeftt. That a man who was generally regarded 
 at that time as a mere •' dreamer of dreams " should see 
 so clearly the practical chances of a given course, was a 
 surprise. It may be puzzling also to many who have 
 read Charles Knight's dashing account of the rather 
 shiftless habits of De Quincey at an earlier day. 
 
 On any mere literary question there would, of course, 
 have been no ground for anything but respect as to his 
 judgment. But I here speak distinctly of the business 
 aspect of matters. When he chose to take the trouble, 
 he saw " farther into a millstone '! than most people gave 
 him credit for. 
 
 One piece of sound advice he sometimes gave me 
 (would that I had taken it oftener !) ; it is embodied 
 somewhere in his worlcs : " Don't fire over the heads of 
 this generation. That won't suit your purpose." 
 
 He was often my counsellor, particularly as regards 
 articles which would run into a series. His ripe ex- 
 perience and sound judgment were often invaluable to 
 me in such cases. 
 
 The Carlyles. 
 
 Many, many times De Quincey referred, with the 
 most touching, almost tearful, earnestness, to Mrs. Gar- 
 lyle and her kindly care of him during a severe illness. 
 Mrs. Carlyle had nursed him, if I remember rightly, at 
 their own home, and he ever afterward retained the 
 most profound feeling of gratitude for her motherly 
 kindness, combined with the highest possible opinion of 
 her character and intellectual power. More than once, 
 while dwelling upon her qualities of heart and head, he 
 
1 88 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 exclaimed, " She was, indeed, the most angelic woman I 
 ever met upon this — God's earth ! " 
 
 Some little time before the fourteenth volume of the 
 books came out (the close of my father's series), I was 
 about to transfer myself to London. De Quincey said : 
 " If ever you meet Carlyle, will you tell him from me — " 
 and he charged me with a solemn and moving message. 
 I dare only say that it referred to Mrs. Carlyle. 
 
 Years passed before I delivered what then had become 
 a message from the grave. 
 
 At intervals I had some correspondence of a cordial 
 character with Carlyle. This originated when I had 
 begun to assume the active editorship of the Instructor 
 in order to assist my father. A series of " Celebrities " 
 had been planned for the magazine, giving biographical 
 and critical sketches, accompanied by steel engravings, 
 which were executed by the late Frank Croll. ' 
 
 For this series I desired a portrait and sketch of 
 Carlyle. I communicated with him on the subject, and 
 asked whether he would sit for a photographic portrait. 
 In a serio-comical reply he growled about portraits 
 generally, and expressed a great disgust at sitting to 
 anybody, winding up, however, by saying that he would 
 do so if I wished. Accordingly I arranged a sitting at 
 Mr. Mayall's, and a daguerreotype was taken which 
 satisfied Carlyle. 
 
 At a later date, after I had founded London Society 
 (which I edited for twenty years), I conceived the idea 
 of a certain series of articles, and laid the plan before 
 Carlyle, with an offer which he was pleased to say was 
 " an abundantly liberal one." But although he liked the 
 notion of my series, he explained to me how the work 
 he had in hand precluded him from making the attempt, 
 as he felt his strength already severely taxed. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. l8.) 
 
 Time passed on. I had often thought of calling on 
 my correspondent, but the pressure of my work had 
 always thrown something in the way. 
 
 At length one forenoon in April, 1876, whilst making 
 arrangements for a visit to Germany, I was passing down 
 the Embankment, and suddenly paused, conscience- 
 stricken. , The thought struck me, " There is that mes- 
 sage from De Quincey never delivered. If I do not 
 make haste, I may never have the chance." I wheeled 
 round, and made my way to Cheyne Row. 
 
 After sending in my name, I learned that Carlyle was 
 at home. He sent down a message to let me know that 
 he was dressing, and that if I could wait a little he would 
 be glad to see me. By-and-by he appeared, apparently 
 very nervous and feeble. 
 
 At first I let the conversation drift hither and thither, 
 but gradually bent it to De Quincey and their old 
 working days. By this time Carlyle had become 
 animated, and seemed to gain nervous power. I then 
 told him I had a message to him from an old friend 
 now no more. I gave De Quincey's words as faithfully 
 as I could. 
 
 As I spoke, Carlyle started, quivered, and the tears 
 sprang to his eyes. It was some little time before the 
 tremor ceased. Slowly, sadly, tenderly he murmured 
 little ejaculatory recollections of those old days, and after 
 the first thrill of emotion, it seemed to do him good. 
 
 We sat long, as he questioned me concerning De 
 Quincey's latter years, when I had been so much with 
 him. He seemed much pleased to learn about the 
 signal success of the Collected Works. 
 
 By-and-by the card was brought in of a German 
 professor from Breslau, who had previously forwarded 
 an introduction from Ranke, the historian. 
 
1 90 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 I rose to go, but Carlyle pressed me to stay, so we 
 were joined by the professor, a lively, genial German, 
 evidently well steeped in Carlyle's works. 
 
 The German had " battle on the brain." He was full 
 of the great Frederick's engagements. There was one 
 battle the strategy of which he was specially anxious to 
 discuss with Carlyle. On the subject coming up, Carlyle 
 pulled himself well together (considering the lassitude I 
 had so lately observed), and proceeded to illustrate the 
 matter with surprising vigour. He asked the professor 
 whether he had ever seen Arthur's Seat (the hill so 
 called) at Edinburgh. The professor had. So it was 
 worked in as a help in considering the German battle- 
 ground, which both appeared to know well. 
 
 After the professor's departure we had more talk. 
 Arthur's Seat had called up old Edinburgh days to us 
 both — Carlyle's residence at Comely Bank, etc. I 
 amused him by telling that when a boy I had often 
 gone with some companions to the hill-top about sunrise 
 on May-day to gather May dew. I suggested that w6 
 should require to be fairly well paid to undertake such 
 a job now. To which he responded (hands crossed on 
 his staff as he. sat beside me, with his feet on the fender), 
 with the deep " Ay, ay,'' which I found was his favourite 
 rejoinder. 
 
 These Edinburgh reminiscences recalled another 
 " mutual friend " and his own early days. 
 
 The late Rev. George Johnston, D.D., of Edinburgh, 
 was a distinguished minister of the United Presbyterian 
 Church. His first charge was at Ecclefechan, where he 
 became acquainted with Carlyle and his father, the 
 latter being, if I mistake not, a member of his congrega- 
 tion. When I left Edinburgh this old friend said to me, 
 " When you come across Carlyle, don't forget to tell him 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 191 
 
 that George Johnston, of Ecclefechan, desires to be 
 kindly remembered." I did so, and this seemed to carry 
 Carlyle back to the old Dumfries days,* concerning which 
 he made some musing observations. 
 
 I was able to tell him how wildly enthusiastic a 
 number of my fellow-students became (when I was at 
 college at Edinburgh) concerning " Sartor Resartus " and 
 " Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts." The 
 combination of Herr Teufelsdrockh and Toad-in-the- 
 Hole seemed to tickle him. 
 
 There was some talk about the age of Ranke, which 
 differed from that of Carlyle, I think, by a year or so. 
 This led me to mention that I was about to start for 
 Leipzig, in order to spend a week at the great Easter 
 Fair, which annually brings together so many publishers 
 and booksellers from all parts of Europe. Again Carlyle 
 responded : " Ay, ay. We're a wandering people ; but 
 it's good to go and see one's fellow-creatures." 
 
 This hit at "wandering people" was an allusion to 
 our being brother Scotsmen. 
 
 I remember well the parting scene. Carlyle drew 
 himself up to his full height and planted himself firmly 
 on his feet as I prepared to leave. I said : " Now, my 
 
 * Dr. Johnston told me a characteristic anecdote of the elder 
 Carlyle — ^his dogged determination, or obstinacy, whichever it may 
 be called. He was once suffering from a serious illness which con- 
 fined him to bed. He was a very troublesome patient both to his 
 medical attendant and those who were nursing him. He constantly 
 desired to get up, although, warned that he would injure himself, 
 perhaps seriously, by any such attempt. Nothing, however, would 
 pacify him. One day he said, grimly, " I'll gar mysel' dae't " (I 
 will force myself to do it). So, before he could be stopped, he 
 flung himself out of bed and fell flat on the floor. After being 
 picked up he managed to stagger a few steps about the room, and 
 then allowed himself to be put to bed, and was rather more 
 manageable afterwards. 
 
192 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 wife has never seen you. Some day perhaps, when we 
 are near this, you will allow me to bring her to have a 
 little chat with you ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay," said Carlyle. " I am little able now, as you 
 see, to meet people ; but " — and he smiled — " if she 
 cares to see the old monster, why, come." 
 
 With a sort of presentiment, as we coYdially shook 
 hands, he said, " Farewell ! " We never met again. 
 
 De Quincey's Feeling concerning Thackeray 
 AND Dickens. 
 
 I cannot more truly or effectively state the exact 
 feeling of De Quincey concerning these two famous men 
 than by telling the following story. It will dispose, once 
 for all, of some loose, speculative writing which I have 
 seen on the subject from the pens of those who had no 
 opportunity of arriving at exact knowledge. 
 
 When Thackeray came to Edinburgh to lecture (I 
 think it was the series on "The Four Georges") he 
 expected to meet De Quincey, and looked forward to 
 the event with great pleasure. 
 
 Mr. John Ritchie, the proprietor of The Scotsman 
 (which may be called The Times of Scotland), was well 
 acquainted with the De Quincey family, so also was 
 Mr. Findlay, his nephew, the present proprietor.* 
 
 An invitation was sent to De Quincey, hoping be would 
 join a dinner party at which the author of Vanity Fair 
 was to be present, also some Edinburgh celebrities. To 
 this a very courteous reply was received, declining in 
 terms of studied politeness. I believe indisposition was 
 * See pp. 158-9. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 1 93 
 
 the reason alleged, and that truly, for I remember De 
 Quincey was not very well at the moment. Thackeray 
 was greatly disappointed. He had counted on meeting 
 the weird author of the " Confessions." 
 
 Mr. Ritchie made another kindly attempt to bring 
 the two together. A second dinner party was put in 
 motion, and Mr. Findlay called personally to urge De 
 Quincey to favour them with his company. Whether he 
 received some contingent promise in the matter, I forget. 
 
 It happened that on the very evening fixed for this 
 second dinner party, of which I was then ignorant, I 
 met De Quincey at Lothian Street, with a bunch of 
 troublesome proof-sheets which we proceeded to examine 
 together. 
 
 I suppose we had gone on some two hours working and 
 talking when De Quincey fell into one of those dreamy 
 pauses, with closed eyelids, which I never disturbed, 
 knowing that he would soon tell me what had crossed 
 his brain. By-and-by he looked up, and said : " Well, I 
 suppose about this time they may, perhaps, be expecting 
 me again at George Square," 
 
 I guessed the case in a moment. " What ! " I said, 
 " is there another dinner party, and ' are you going to 
 disappoint them again ? " 
 
 " Well, you see," he replied, rather apologetically, as if 
 desirous to debate the case with me, " I have not been 
 quite well, as you know ; and then my dress suit is not 
 here ; it is lying at home" (Mavis Bush Cottage). 
 
 I thought it a great pity that Thackeray and De 
 Quincey should fail to meet, so I did my best to induce 
 him to go. "Come," I said, "what nonsense talking 
 about dress suits ! You know very well they would be 
 glad to have you in the jacket." By this I meant the 
 huge warm flannel affair, built with a very high collar, 
 
 O 
 
194 THOMAS DE QUINCEY: 
 
 according to his own design, which constituted his 
 favourite working costume, and in which he was then 
 sitting. " But," I proceeded, more seriously, " your 
 ordinary walking dress is here, and George Square is 
 very near. There is a cab-stand outside. If you will 
 only dress in that " (pointing to a coat which lay on a 
 chair), " I will drive you round in a twinkling. You are 
 quite in time yet. Let the proofs wait." 
 
 For a moment I thought that he wavered, moved by 
 my earnestness. But the eyelids closed again, and 
 another dream-pause followed. I waited patiently, and 
 by-and-by he said : " No ; much as it troubles me to see 
 people, if it had been Dickens, now, I might have gone 
 — I should have gone ; but not Thackeray. There is a 
 benignity in everything that Dickens has done." 
 
 This was said with that quiet resolution which showed 
 me he had made up his mind. So I abandoned the 
 attempt, and we resumed our task at the proof-sheets. 
 This lasted until about midnight, and as all the house- 
 hold had gone to bed, De Quincey came with a candle 
 to assist me in gaining footing on the staircase leading 
 from the flat. 
 
 As I began to descend I could not resist having a 
 Parthian shot about the party. " Now," I said, " if you 
 had only done as you ought, you would have had dinner 
 by this time, and been digesting it over a good talk with 
 Thackeray," 
 
 He gave a little shrug, and made a droll little "moue" 
 which seemed to convey, " Well, you're quite right ; I 
 know I am a very naughty boy." 
 
 I leave the incident without comment. The memor- 
 able words about the " benignity " of Dickens struck me 
 forcibly, and remain imprinted most distinctly on my 
 memory. 
 
his friends and associates. 19s 
 
 Christopher North. 
 
 Professor Wilson was one of the few whose society 
 De Quincey enjoyed. Sometimes, when below par, he 
 rather shrank from encountering the exuberant spirits 
 of the leonine Kit North. However, he always spoke 
 of him with a certain affectionate regard, 
 
 I have already referred in the notes on Carlyle to 
 the series of biographical sketches carried on in the 
 Instructor. My father and myself were anxious to have 
 Professor Wilson included. De Quincey kindly pro- 
 mised to write the sketch, but for a long time the portrait 
 was a difficulty. 
 
 Messrs. Ross & Thomson were the leading photo- 
 graphers in Edinburgh at that time, and again and 
 again they held themselves in readiness to take the 
 renowned Christopher. He always professed willingness, 
 but the difficulty was to catch him, and then Ross & 
 Thomson doubted whether they could get him to keep 
 quiet long enough. 
 
 At last one fine day Frank Croll, who was to be the 
 engraver, with a couple of "mutual friends," captured 
 the professor, and landed him safely in Ross & Thom- 
 son's studio. By a little management they got him to 
 keep steady, with his hand on his staff, for a short time, 
 securing an admirable portrait. He was told so. 
 
 " Well, we'll see. Get one ready .to-morrow, and when 
 lecture is over I shall have a look at myself." 
 
 As good as his word, he came flying in next day to 
 our office, which was nearly opposite the University. 
 
 " Where's that thing you've been taking of me ? " he 
 exclaimed to me. 
 
 I showed him the photograph, which he held out at 
 arm's length. 
 
 O 2 
 
igS THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 " Ah, that's the fellow, is it ! I shouldn't like to meet 
 him on a dark night ! And whats more, I shotddrit like 
 to buy a horse of him ! " 
 
 With this humorous criticism of his effigy, he laughed 
 and departed, the staff swirling and the big shirt collar 
 flapping. 
 
 This reminds me that pedestrians often thought . it 
 prudent to give him rather a "wide berth " as he crossed 
 the North Bridge to his daily lecture. The whirl of 
 the staff as he strode on, ejaculating portions of the 
 coming discourse, might have sometimes been more 
 than awkward. 
 
 One winter De Quincey was very poorly indeed, and 
 opium, which generally brought relief in cold weather, 
 failed to alleviate his unpleasant symptoms. A constant 
 gnawing sensation was felt in the region of the stomach. 
 I have no doubt this was a real sensation, induced by 
 the long-continued use of the drug. At the same time 
 .remembering Dr. Copeland's remarkable article on the 
 power of the mind in bringing on symptoms of disease, it 
 is quite probable that the intensity of the suffering was 
 increased by a remembrance of the dreadful passage in 
 the original preface to the " Confessions," wherein he 
 mentions that " Mr. Addington, an Under-Secretary of 
 State and brother to the first Lord Sidmouth, described 
 to me the sensations which first drove him to the use of 
 opium in the very same words as the Dean of Carlisle, 
 viz., ' that he felt as though rats were gnawing at the 
 coats of his stomach.' " 
 
 De Quincey at length conjured up the idea that some 
 living creature occupied the stomach, and on waking 
 up at intervals, proceeded to gnaw the coats of it. He 
 was in a very morbid mental condition, and the physical 
 weakness was considerable. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. I97 
 
 We did all that we could to get him out of this sombre 
 notion, which preyed greatly upon his mind, and for 
 hours at a time paralysed all exertion. 
 
 One day, while in this state, De Quincey called upon 
 Professor Wilson, who soon observed that he was in a 
 very prostrate condition. De Quincey commenced with 
 plaintive eloquence to tell him all about the doings of 
 this horrid creature in his stomach ; that he was being 
 consumed by inches ; was a doomed man, and so forth. 
 
 Christopher diagnosed the case at a glance. With 
 great solemnity he said : " De Quincey, I am really 
 surprised and shocked. You are generally the most 
 considerate of mortals, but this is a case of downright 
 cruelty to animals. You say he gnaws you. Why 
 shouldn't he ? Feed him, man, — feed him, and he won't 
 bother you. The poor fellow is hungry. Come, let us give 
 him some hare soup at once." He rang the bell, ordered 
 the soup, and compelled De Quincey to swallow it. 
 
 The professor's prescription was a capital tonic. The 
 whole scene gave the poor patient a wholesome fillip. 
 He began to regain his better health, the unpleasant 
 symptoms gradually died away, and we heard no more 
 of the creature in the stomach. 
 
 ^^ 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 
 Numerous pilgrims from America, when on the 
 European tour, called at Mavis Bush Cottage. This 
 being at no great distance from the classic spots of 
 Hawthornden and Roslin Chapel (with its famous 
 'prentice's pillar), enabled them to kill three or four birds 
 with one stone. 
 
 De Quincey appreciated highly the interest in himself 
 
198; THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 and his works which was evidenced by these calls. At 
 the same time they were a source of serious pain to him. 
 He was most carefully supported in every way by the 
 graceful, thoughtful hospitality which his daughters 
 exercised toward all these enthusiastic visitors, but the 
 strain of being called on to appear before strangers at 
 moments when he was either in need of physical repose 
 or desired perfect quiet in order to elaborate some 
 literary effort — all this was often very trying to him. 
 
 Another evil attendant on this strain, on which he 
 often comically commented to me, was that he had no 
 son at home who could drink wine with guests. Ladies, 
 of course, he remarked, could not be expected to be 
 proficients in this accomplishment, and as for himself, 
 when he made the attempt he was almost sure to be ill 
 afterwards. 
 
 The correspondence also from America — from warm 
 admirers of the author's works, entailed no small amount 
 of labour on the part of De Quincey's daughters in their 
 courteous attention to such epistles. 
 
 Amongst this correspondence nothing gave De 
 Quincey greater pleasure than the letters received from 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne. The two famous men had much 
 in common. De Quincey, on countless occasions, ex- 
 pressed to me his high opinion of Hawthorne as an 
 author, and the satisfaction he derived from the letters. 
 As usual, the correspondence was kept up by his family. 
 Whether De Quincey ever replied personally, I have 
 forgotten. Thinking over the singular interest attaching 
 to these letters I endeavoured, lately, to ascertain whether 
 any of them are in existence. On this point Mrs. Baird 
 Smith finds herself unable to help me. We fear that they 
 perished in a rather hurried " sorting," or rather burning 
 of papers which took place after De Quincey's decease. 
 
his friends and associates. 1 99 
 
 Clare Market. 
 
 Amongst the passages in which De Quincey has been 
 supposed to be playfully "throwing the hatchet," 
 "romancing," or whatever you may call a stretch of 
 imagination concerning slender elements of fact, that 
 which bears on Clare Market and his proffered assistance 
 to poor people in their marketing is often supposed to be 
 one. I firmly believe that it is a simple record of fact. 
 
 On many occasions he dilated to me concerning his 
 mode of life and the incidents which befell him while re- 
 siding at No. 4, York Street, Covent Garden, where he 
 wrotethe "Confessions." * He told me of his solitary walks 
 at night, his studies of the working poor in and around 
 Drury Lane and St. Giles's, and his close knowledge of 
 the concentrated misery of these quarters of London, 
 
 What these places were then I learned from the sombre 
 Rembrandtesque pictures which he drew of the life he 
 had so closely studied. What it is still, after daylight has 
 been driven into so many " rookeries," many of us know, 
 
 Clare Market was one of his favourite hunting-grounds. 
 Sometimes, also, I think, but not so frequently, the 
 region of the New Cut, at Lambeth. 
 
 His Saturday evening pilgrimages to Clare Market 
 were frequent. He was a keen observer of human nature 
 in the buying and selling which went on in that London 
 hive, watching the investment of part of the hard-won 
 wages on a Sunday dinner, that oasis in the life of the 
 working man. His especial commiseration was excited 
 by the poor, fragile, worn-down wives, often with a child 
 
 * The late Mr. H. G. Bohn showed me this room, which formed 
 part of his warehouse. It was destroyed some time ago when 
 certain structural changes were carried out by his successors, Messrs. 
 George Bell & Sons. 
 
20O THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 in their arms and several at their feet. To such as these 
 he would now and then, if he thought it would be useful, 
 offer a kindly suggestion concerning a morsel of meat 
 or a supply of vegetables to be purchased. Such sug- 
 gestions he assured me were generally received by the 
 feeble, hesitating, ignorant women with grateful thanks. 
 They readily divined the good intention, the perfectly 
 disinterested action, of their singular but gentlemanly 
 adviser. 
 
 The Story of the "Confessions." 
 
 It was long before De Quincey could be induced by 
 the persuasion of his family and his friends, combined 
 with the united efforts of my father and myself, to " pull 
 himself together " and encounter the task of revising his 
 writings for the issue of a collected edition of his works 
 from Edinburgh. 
 
 It certainly was what Abraham Lincoln would have 
 called " a big job." His precarious health and periods 
 of <leep depression as well as the varied difficulties 
 which cannot be explained shortly — all rendered it a 
 matter of formidable labour and some perplexity. For 
 a time these mixed considerations threatened to crush all 
 hope of the enterprise. Gradually, however, the prospect 
 cleared, and the material help afforded by the American 
 edition at last led the way to a contract with us for the 
 series of fourteen volumes which ultimately saw the 
 light. 
 
 The first volume of "Selections, Grave and Gay"^ 
 (Autobiographic Sketches), was far advanced — nearly 
 the whole of it being printed off, when announcements- 
 heralding the series were inserted in the London papers. 
 
HIS FJIIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 201 : 
 
 Here commences a story which I now tell for the first r 
 time in print — as concisely and with as little egotism 
 as the case permits. Being the only one of the chief 
 actors now alive, it appears to me to have become my 
 duty, as the survivor, to place the facts on record in 
 this volume. For this purpose I put them circum- 
 stantially, adding the names of those immediately 
 concerned. The struggle was notably an interesting 
 episode in the history of the "Confessions" — it was 
 practically the turning-point as to whether the public 
 would ever obtain the author's revised edition of his , 
 works. 
 
 To proceed — no sooner had the advertisements 
 appeared giving notice of De Quincey's intention than 
 my father received a letter from the late Mr. John 
 Taylor, then the surviving partner in the firm of Taylor 
 & Hessey who were the proprietors of The London 
 Magazine in which the " Confessions" originally appeared. 
 In this letter Mr. Taylor claimed the absolute copyright 
 of the " Confessions," and peremptorily forbade the use 
 of them in any edition of the author's works. 
 
 This sudden unlooked-for embargo was a very serious 
 affair. Mr. Taylor declined either to enter upon the 
 grounds of his claim or to consider any possible arrange- 
 ment in the matter. 
 
 De Quincey at first said, thoughtfully, but somewhat 
 dubiously, that he had not parted with the " Confessions " 
 in any formal manner. At the same time gravely and 
 serenely, indeed half-humorously, he said, " Well, if the 
 ' Confessions ' really are not mine, there is an end of 
 everything. We cannot proceed without them ! " It 
 seemed a happy deliverance from a great deal of laborious. 
 
202 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 1 
 
 tormenting work which he had faced with reluctance 
 and would be glad to get rid of. 
 
 In the deadlock thus caused my father consulted his 
 solicitor, but did not get much comfort there. The 
 utmost that Mr. Taylor vouchsafed was this : — " I have 
 the authority of two counsel of eminence for stating that 
 the copyright of the ' Confessions ' is my property." 
 
 My father's solicitor advised, after consulting Scottish 
 counsel, that, probably, De Quincey had forgotten some 
 letter or document he had given in the course of the 
 thirty years which had passed — that Mr. Taylor would 
 most probably have some solid grounds for his claim, 
 and that to risk a costly action under such hazy con- 
 ditions and after such a lapse of time, was an affair too 
 perilous to be risked. 
 
 It seemed a perfect impasse. The first volume was 
 nearly ready — its date of publication had been announced. 
 What was to be done ? 
 
 My father, of course, was greatly disturbed — De 
 Quincey remained grave and silent. 
 
 At this crisis I said to both one day when the trouble 
 was being discussed (I was young and " curly " then), 
 "Will you let me handle this affair?" Gladly, they 
 responded, half-amused at my eagerness to rush into the 
 fray. Then and there I stipulated for a free hand and 
 got De Quincey's authority to act according to my 
 discretion. 
 
 My secret feeling was that our worthy family solicitor, 
 although a conveyancer of ability and repute, knew very 
 little about copyright, and was rather frightened at 
 "the authority of two counsel of eminence." Un- 
 fortunately I was not acquainted with any legal luminary 
 of the Scottish capital likely to grapple with such an 
 imbroglio satisfactorily. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 203 
 
 'M.y first step was to examine De Quincey, again and 
 again, very carefully on the whole history of the " Con- 
 fessions." At the start his mind was cloudy on some 
 important points, but under my repeated, specific ques- 
 tionings, it gradually cleared. After four or five serious 
 interviews he declared to me that he now firmly believed 
 he had never made any assignment of the " Confessions." 
 As to his long acquiescence in the reprint editions he 
 could give no reason whatever. It appeared to be 
 another instance of that inexplicable indifference to 
 money matters of which several striking examples are 
 given throughout the memories here drawn together. 
 
 All that had happened, I learned, beyond the original 
 payment as ordinary magazine contributions, was the 
 present of an amount sent by Mr. Taylor in some far 
 back year — after the first reprint of the " Confessions " 
 in volume form. De Quincey had neither authorized 
 nor questioned the various reprints. He had simply lain 
 dormant on the whole affair. The letter containing 
 Mr. Taylor's present of ;^20 had been acknowledged, 
 with his sanction, by some member of the family. 
 
 My second step was to read up the whole statute and 
 " case " law bearing on copyright. I thought I saw where 
 the strength and the weakness of our case would lie. 
 
 My good friend the late Samuel Halkett, keeper of 
 the Advocates' Library, gave me the run of their shelves, 
 and I busied myself for a week in the dim, silent recesses 
 of the great library — taking a hard spell of legal study. 
 I emerged from my seclusion with very decided views. 
 
 Although I foresaw the formidable difficulty created 
 by De Quincey's strange neglect of his interests for the 
 long period of thirty years, I arrived at the opinion, that 
 the courts, even under such extraordinary circumstances, 
 would not intervene to strip an author of his copyright 
 
204 THOMAS DE QUINCEY: 
 
 if he had not parted with it in writing. Mr. Taylor's 
 reticence, coupled with De Quincey's reviving firmness 
 of memory on the subject, led me to suppose that no 
 such cession of copyright had ever been made. 
 
 My third step was to look out for the most dis- 
 tinguished copyright specialist in the kingdom. 
 
 This appeared to be the late Mr. Serjeant Burke, 
 author of two excellent Manuals of copyright law. Ac- 
 cordingly I drew a careful " case " and placed it in the 
 hands of our London agents, Messrs. Groombridge, to be 
 by them sent to their solicitor Mr. G. F. Shaw (then 
 editor of The Bankers' Magazine), in order that the 
 opinion of Mr. Serjeant Burke might be taken. That 
 learned counsel at once took up the matter with great 
 zeal. He sent on some queries for me to answer, and in 
 a few days thereafter I received an elaborate opinion 
 which took up every point of the case and discussed 
 it with scrupulous care j summing up by an emphatic 
 support of my own judgment that we ought to win — bar 
 any unknown document which might be sprung. Thus 
 fortified, I instantly took the fourth step. 
 
 Remembering the ancient fi-iendship of De Quincey 
 and Messrs. Taylor and Hessey (which rendered the 
 curtness and singular form of this caveat all the more 
 remarkable) I challenged Mr. Taylor, quietly but firmly, 
 to an issue. 
 
 Frankly stating the nature of the legal opinion which 
 guided me, I gave him seven days to consider whether 
 he would withdraw a claim which he had refused to 
 explain. If not, I warned him that an action would at 
 once follow — calling on him for " count and reckoning " 
 of all the profits accruing from every edition of the 
 " Confessions " which had been issued by him personally 
 or under his authority. [This latter clause bore upon 
 
HIS. FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 205 
 
 editions which. I found had appeared in "Smith's 
 Standard Library " by Mr. Taylor's license.] 
 
 On the fifth day after despatching this ultimatum I 
 received Mr. Taylor's brief reply. He remarked that 
 De Quincey and himself were now old men. He had 
 reconsidered the whole matter and withdrew all claim 
 to the " Confessions." 
 
 I went straight to De Quincey with this letter. He 
 read it slowly and carefully, then turned it face down- 
 wards on the table, and, looking at me with a smile, 
 said : — " I have been watching with extreme interest the 
 lawyer-like ability you have displayed in this complex 
 matter. . Pardon me for suggesting that you have 
 mistaken your profession — you ought to have entered 
 the world of the law ! " 
 
 So ended, happily, what at one moment seemed an 
 almost insuperable obstacle. Even if litigation had in 
 the course of time removed it, as I have no doubt it 
 would, the great danger was that De Quincey's resolution 
 would have been utterly dissipated by delay and the 
 whole of the arrangements frustrated. 
 
 He buckled cheerfully and with fresh vigour to the 
 work, and never again referred to the difficulty. Neither 
 did I. 
 
206 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 UNPUBLISHED LETTERS. 
 
 FACSIMILE OF LETTER IN DE QUINCEY'S 
 HANDWRITING. 
 
 [This was written in 1858. The Title finally adopted for 
 Volume X. of the Collected Works is : — " Classic Records Reviewed 
 or Deciphered."] 
 
 
 Jilt liU/yy vvuA^ ^ ^ /Wt^ Cf7tu.,~-^irn^C<nuJu.^ 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 20/ 
 
 «iW- 
 
 if: f/-PKci — m/[r-^y/^ 
 
 
208 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 FACSIMILE OF LETTER IN DE QUINCEY'S 
 HANDWRITING. 
 
 ■[This was written in 1859, the year in which De Quincey died. 
 The Title finally adopted for the Eleventh Volume of the Collected 
 Works is :— " Critical Suggestions on Style and Rhetoric."] 
 
 ]^ a^i — trJiM^ t'~d^.jL,<ni^^Js::^ ^^ i/}(Zu^ ilm^ ^ 
 
 / //i-.^.-T^t.-'Jt--, ii'-J-T iun^~■.'^[/Mi(^ -^ 
 
 ''*-' 
 
 (rV&^ 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 209 
 
 "-'^^._ 
 
 ^■■LS<,_ ^/^Ay^JJ oMaA^^-g^^. inJI^ZLiA^ 
 
210 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 HUMOROUS LETTER CONCERNING 
 A PRESS « QUERY." 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have just sent down to St. And. Sq. 
 as accurate a reply to your Father's note as your im- 
 patient messenger would allow me time for. But for 
 fear of accident through my hurry I send a more 
 cautiously written answer — a sort of duply (tho' not 
 entirely what your Scottish Law means by that term) — 
 and, if need should be, will send a triply. 
 
 The name .^Ethon [Grsecfe Mdcov] (as I now remem- 
 ber) occurs twice in Homer, once in the ' Iliad,' where it 
 figures as the name of one amongst Hector's four horses. 
 This Quadriga consisted of Lamprus, Podargus, our 
 friend ^Ethon, and one beside, whose name has 
 dropped out of my memory. Or possibly the horse 
 might be up the spout, in which case Hector would 
 drive a Unicorn (as in my youth people called such an 
 arrangement) — two shaft horses, a biga in fact, and one 
 leader. However it might be, I cannot recollect the 
 fourth name. Could it be Ao/S/Sw .-' 
 
 Out of this .(Ethon I can make nothing at all relevant. 
 But in the ' Odyssey ' there is another ^thon ; not a 
 horse, but a man ; and by the same token a knave ; 
 viz., the hero of the poem Ulysses ; a descendant of 
 Sisyphus ; and he, like other knaves, being often in want 
 of an alias, somewhere pretends that his name is jEthon 
 — as, perhaps, it might be amongst his indorsements of 
 bills. This, I conceiVe, is the man wanted ; and the 
 motto will then be — 
 
 PuBava fieydBvfiov, 
 
 ^thon the magnanimous — 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 211 
 
 in the ace. as governed by some verb understood ; let 
 us hope the verb knout, or cowhide. 
 The other motto should be 
 
 Antiguam exquirite matrem. 
 
 Searchingly examine your old foster-mother. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 T. DE Q. 
 
 Nov. 23. 
 
 HUMOROUS LETTER CONCERNING THE 
 SUN'S "GIMLET EYE." 
 
 This letter, which has day and month but no year 
 attached, was written in 1857. It came on De Quincey's 
 recovery from an unusually severe attack of dyspepsia 
 and depression. A few days before this date Miss Stark 
 had rushed down from Lothian Street in great alarm to 
 tell me she was sure he was very ill. He would take 
 no food, would scarcely see her, and had ordered that 
 no one should disturb him. I felt puzzled as to whether 
 I should take up our good friend. Dr. Burn, with me at 
 once or — wait. After conferring with ray Father we 
 concerted with Miss Stark that the light food which 
 De Quincey liked best should be set down in his room 
 without asking him for any instructions ; that his condi- 
 tion should be carefully watched ; and that we should 
 receive a message every morning and evening as to the 
 patient's progress ; or at any moment if he seemed to 
 become worse. 
 
 He got round slowly and then I sent some little 
 inclosure about " press " matters, with a note inquiring 
 whether he now felt well enough to see any one. Miss 
 Stark had told me she had not been allowed to touch 
 
212 THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 the room for several days ; and I was not at all surprised 
 when I read the funny report in this letter which came 
 an hour or two after the delivery of mine. 
 
 Friday, March 27. 
 
 My dear Sir, — On receiving the little paper con- 
 taining the note of Wedn. it has occurred to me — since 
 you had a wish to communicate it to your Father — that 
 if you would take the trouble to return it to-morrow or 
 Mond., there can be no objection. I have therefore 
 inclosed it. I am sorry to give this trouble : but I have 
 a nervous feeling connected with obscure memoranda 
 lest some impertinent Layard or Lepsius should paste 
 them up in Nin. or Thebes and read them into dreadful 
 symbolic meanings. 
 
 N.B. — My demur to the introduction of any friend 
 into my room under its present chaotic disorder, so fear- 
 fully and circumstantially lighted up by the solar beams,, 
 applies only to daylight ; for I recall to mind that the 
 sun in mid-heaven did once start back in horror with his 
 whole quadriga from the cannibal banquet of Thyestes 
 — doing no doubt "lots" of mischief; and he might 
 take the same crotchet into his head on peering with 
 his gimlet eye into my room. But at night gas or 
 tallow mounts guard, and a mould candle, for example, 
 has no right to such tragedy airs. So do not interrupt 
 your evening visits whenever circumstances allow you to 
 make them. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 Thomas de Quincey. 
 
( 213 ) 
 
 UNPUBLISHED LETTERS. 
 " Confessions " Period. 
 
 TFrom the late Mr. S. J. Davey, the Autograph Collector, of Great 
 Russell Street, through whose hands the original letters passed.] 
 
 (No. 33.) Thomas de Quincey. 
 
 A most interesting series of 6 A, L. S.,* addressed to his 
 friend Hessey, referring to his work on the pleasures and 
 pains of opium. In one of the letters, dated Sep. 1822, 
 De Quincey says : " . . . Here is my case. I am now 
 in my 12th week of a conclusive experiment on the 
 possib. of leaving off opium. 12th, I say, for so I think. 
 At any rate I began on June 24th. Since then my hist, 
 is briefly this. About the 34th day I think I had actually 
 accomplished the end ; for 90 hours [z.e. more ^ a 
 week] I had done without a drop ; suffered much ; 
 having demonstrated the possib., I allowed myself a 
 little, then again abstained ; again indulged ; and so on; 
 letting down (from 50 — 200 drops my ordinary dose), to 
 about 40 as a maximum for comfort, tho' without losing 
 my station I sometimes ran up the ladder far higher for 
 a day. So far well.; nothing worse than pain. About 
 the 42nd day came on a sudden distention of the 
 stomach ; violent biliousness ; rheumatic pains ; then 
 pains resembling internal rheumatism — and many other 
 evils ; but all trifles compared with the unspeakable, 
 overwhelming, unutterable misery of mind which came 
 on in one couple of days, and has continued almost 
 lanabatingly ever since. Tho' suff. pain I was in higher 
 spirits on the 40th day than for many years back ; some 
 sudden revolution in my bodily condit., at which I can 
 hardly guess, has brought me into a state in which I 
 
 * Autograph Letters signed. 
 
214 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 feel at times the wretchedness of a lunatic, . . ." The 
 other letters in the series, chiefly 4to., contain interesting 
 references to the progress of his Confessions, and also 
 a reference to some drugs he urgently requires, &c. [The 
 extract closes at this point.] 
 
 (No. 4045.) ■ Thomas de Quincey. 
 
 ' A. L. S. I p. 4to. Complete with address and seal ta 
 Hessey. ..." I have exerted myself as much as I pos- 
 sibly could, and without any intermission. But on 
 Friday night, from the insufferable heat, increased by a 
 fire which I was under the necessity of keeping in all 
 night, I flung off" the bedclothes in my sleep, and rose 
 with a sore throat, which towards evening increased into 
 a fever, and, though I am now again better, yet from 
 the oppression of my spirits I could not work so fast ; 
 and the dose failing, the different parts I had prepared 
 into each other obliged me to many alterations that 
 some parts are still to be written again. . . . The truth 
 is, I am often obliged to compose the whole almost itt 
 my mind before I can write a line, . . ." &c. 
 
 POOR ANN ! 
 
 General Hamley's Jeu d'Esprit and De Musset's French 
 Version. 
 
 Two attempts have been made in different ways by writers of very 
 different character in connection with the " Confessions." 
 
 Alfred de Musset's rare French translation of the Opium-Eater and his 
 singular interpolation concerning the touching episode of poor Ann of 
 Oxford Street, have been treated with great discrimination and just 
 strictures by Dr. Garnett in the Parchment Library edition, and the text of 
 the French original there given. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 21$ 
 
 The other case is the parody entitled " A Recent Confession of an 
 Opium-Eater," pvLhlishsd in Slackwooifs Magazine for December 1856 
 (vol. Ixxx., p. 629). It now appears that this was from the pen of 
 the late General E. B. Hamley. 
 
 The story opens in a squalid chamber — a garret in the Old Town of Edinburgh, to 
 which a dreamy Opium-Eater has been decoyed by a couple of " body-snatchers,*' that 
 he might there be '* Burked." The two chief characters are " Long-nosed Bill " and 
 ** Squabby." They have a faded female confederate called Catherine. Hard drinking 
 begins, pressed on by these worthies — unlimited port wine at first, to which, by and by, 
 a bottle of laudanum is added. The visitor obtains a glimpse of a handy chamber con- 
 taining a bed and a sack. The bed has mattresses and apparatus for smothering purposes, 
 and the intended victim awakes to the fact that they mean to "hocuss " him, and so 
 procure a subject for their medical employers, Bein? a seasoned toper, he is on the alert 
 .—manages an exchange of glasses and liquids, and so reduces his hosts to insensibility 
 by an opiate drench. In his dazed condition the visitor dreams that he is laid on a bier, 
 and that all the mighty surgeons and physicians whom the world ever saw come to 
 dissect him. 
 
 The dream over, he finds his companions still prostrate, and he considers it time to be 
 stirring before they recover. After .swallowing the remainder of the laudanum as a 
 parting treat, he stumbles down stairs with the candle. This falls from the bottle in which 
 it had been stuck, and sets fire to some straw. He escapes — the flames crackle joyously 
 until the walls crumble and sink, burying in their ruins the ashes of the body-snatchers. 
 
 In spite of some passages which have a spice of humour, the story on the 
 whole will appear to most readers a somewhat coarse and feeble travesty of 
 one of "the world's classics." 
 
 Perhaps nothing of its kind, in all literature, is more remarkable for 
 simple pathos and delicate treatment than De Quincey's record of " his 
 Pariah-Saint, poor Ann of Oxford Street." The ill-judged mockery which 
 underlies the clumsy, jejune passage on "Catherine" in the parody is 
 " worse than a crime, it is a blunder." As Charlotte Bronte said of certain 
 French novels, " it leaves a bad taste in the mouth." 
 
 In fact, the whole of this affair is a deplorable mistake — an inconsiderate 
 notion carried out by a writer who had little or no capacity of the kind 
 required to save the rash enterprise from condemnation. The biographer 
 ("Life," by A. Innes Shand, vol. i., p. 105 — published in 1895) prints a 
 note in which Hamley writes airily about "catching the old gmfs style." 
 This is sufiSciently grotesque when we remember the majesty of the Master's 
 style which has to be caught, and examine, by the light of to-day, the 
 wooden performance of this would-be follower. It is like a child trying 
 to catch a rainbow. It may be that, at the time of publication, some 
 people shared the admiration now expressed by General Hamley's biographer 
 or this unfortunate story. But — if they did — it is one of those judgments 
 which get knocked to pieces by the wind and weather of forty years. 
 -J. H,. 
 
2l6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY 
 
 A DAUGHTER'S MEMORIES. 
 
 [Amongst the various interesting passages contributed by Mrs. 
 Baird Smith to Dr. Japp's Life the following bears directly on the 
 purpose of this volume.] 
 
 "Excepting now and again from the necessities of 
 business, he was a man so essentially sociable that he 
 was never separated from his family, sharing so inti- 
 mately all their joys and sorrows that I never remember 
 him absent from any event, whether small or great, and 
 I cannot point to the time when he was not in constant 
 habits of association with some good and true friend, 
 with whom intercourse was both delightful to him and 
 profitable. 
 
 " His work was always an extreme labour and diffi- 
 culty to him, and could only be carried on under very 
 special conditions. His best chance of accomplishing 
 anything was from about nine or ten o'clock in the 
 evening till about four to six o'clock in the morning. 
 And his most deadly certainty of failure was the touch- 
 ing of anything in the nature of wine or spirits. There 
 were wife and children running through much of his life ; 
 the wife and the oldest son, even in the most depressed 
 period of the Edinburgh life, sufficient companions even 
 for a mind such as his, and, as said already, a friend to 
 drop in of an evening, or to walk with. Even during 
 the long night-watches, at the period I specially speak 
 of, my mother was with him much of the time ; and with 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 21/ 
 
 many children at hand, there was too often a restless or 
 fretful child to be the delighted companion of his soli- 
 tude, had he been in danger of having too much of it. 
 A certain amount of perfect quiet, though not necessarily 
 of solitude, was indeed essential to him for the shaping 
 of his work ; but from the time when I first became 
 aware of him helping my mother, wearied by a long 
 journey, to superintend the behaviour of the children at 
 the dinner-table, examining each little scaramouch to 
 see that it had not effected an entrance with unwashed 
 hands, I can vouch that he was a constant presence 
 among us ; my mother carefully training us to respect 
 his busy times. After her death, indeed, things went 
 very ill with him and with us too for a time. But there 
 was rarely a day I did not spend with him from early 
 till late, often too late for so young a girl ; and when I 
 was not by any chance with him, some of my brothers 
 were. You may smile at the notion of a child being a 
 companion for such a man, but none the less so it was 
 then and always. 
 
 " But his children were not his only companions. Such 
 was his exceeding fascination for all sorts and conditions 
 of men that he invariably attracted a circle around 
 him, oddly enough composed at times, and this con- 
 stantly increasing in its demands upon his time and 
 sympathy, and occasionally becoming such a devouring 
 pest that he, who could never i-esist even the most 
 outrageous claims upon him, had no refuge but in 
 flight ! 
 
 " Indeed this too great companionableness, this over- 
 popularity, was the real occasion of his few changes 
 rather than any money embarrassments, which, with 
 growing experience, and the occasional overhauling of 
 his affairs by skilful friends, we had come to regard with 
 
2l8 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 much equanimity as mainly the figments of his own 
 imagination, and never more than a few days' steady 
 work would clear off. 
 
 " Something must also be allowed for his great power 
 of expounding his sufferings, whether mental or bodily ; 
 a power which of itself, it seems to me, removes him 
 from that extreme of loneliness which has no such out- 
 let ; and it is very possible that a matter-of-fact person 
 might mistake a powerful wail over ' a common heritage 
 of woe ' for a complaint of personal isolation, leading to 
 a weird impression of loneliness. Some basis for such 
 an impression might be found in utterances like these, 
 but in my idea they referred more to the inevitable 
 loneliness of the human spirit than to any social failure 
 either in himself or in the loving companionship which 
 ran through much of his life." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 219 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS. 
 
 By THE Rev. FRANCIS JACOX. 
 
 " It was on the 13th of July, 1852, that I saw Mr. de 
 Quincey for the first time ; but the welcome he gave me 
 at this first meeting was that of an old friend. 
 
 " He showed interest in learning from how early a date 
 my interest in him had been cherished. It must have 
 been in the first year of my teens that I became ac- 
 quainted with his name, as a youthful prodigy in Greek, 
 whose feats of scholarship were commemorated to a class 
 of very different scholars, in Kensington Grammar School, 
 by the head-master, (in my time) the Rev. W. H. Whit- 
 worth. For particulars we were referred to the ' Con- 
 fessions of an English Opium-Eater' ; and that author's 
 consummate mastery of the English language, especially 
 in the range of impassioned prose, was impressed upon 
 us with admiring sympathy. It was not my good fortune 
 to lay hands on the memorable volume until my school 
 career was ending or ended ; but when I did there were 
 mingled with the reading grateful memories of the man 
 who commended its writer, and of the manner of the 
 commendation. Between that time, however, and the 
 period of my summer visit to Mavis Bush, Lasswade, my 
 appetite for the author's opera omnia had been constantly 
 growing by what it fed on ; and when, a year or two 
 before my becoming his guest, he had forwarded to me 
 a list of his remembered and recognised contributions to 
 
220 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 periodical literature, with a view to collect and reprint 
 them, or at least a selection from them, requesting me at 
 the same time to make any additions to the list, if, from 
 internal evidence, I could, — it was in my power to more 
 than double the total. Many of the best and most 
 characteristic of his anonymous essays he had clean for- 
 gotten, but there was no mistaking his sign-manual ; and 
 he was amusedly surprised at the voluminous expanse of 
 his authorship. •>, 
 
 "And now I was seated beside the author himself, a 
 listener to the dulcet tones of that earnest but softly 
 subdued voice, often tremulous with emphasis, and most 
 musical when most melancholy. Gladly and gratefully 
 would I have compounded for listening only. But Mr. 
 de Quincey * was himself jealous of his rights as a 
 listener too, even where, as in my case, those rights might 
 have been absolutely renounced to our common advan- 
 tage. Nothing could better manifest the innate courtesy, 
 the even sensitive considerateness of the man, than his 
 conduct in this respect. A master of the art of conver- 
 sation, this he is on all sides known to have been ; but I 
 do not remember to have seen justice done to his sur- 
 passing attainments as a good listener. He was always 
 for giving way ; scrupulously on the watch for any, the 
 slightest, token of interruption, objection, comment, 
 assent, question, or answer, nothing could exceed the 
 tone of unaffected deference with which he gave heed as 
 well as ear to whatever his companion might have to say. 
 
 * " His name I write with a small d in the de, as he wrote it 
 himself. He would not have wished it indexed among the D's, 
 but the Q's. With all his sincere and pronounced regard for and 
 admiration of Sara (Mrs. Henry Nelson) Coleridge, he would have 
 entirely declined to countenance her uniform style of writing and 
 printing him, all in one word, or at one fell swoop, ' Mr. 
 Dequincey.' " 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 321 
 
 Whether his talk was equal to that of Coleridge, or even 
 was superior to it, may be a question that very few sur- 
 vivors now are competent to decide, or so much as to 
 discuss. But if Madame de Stael was right in charac- 
 terising S. T. C. as ' de monologue,' and so in implying 
 his incapacity to listen patiently, his monopoly of the 
 prerogative and privileges of harangue, then was Mr. de 
 Quincey the flat opposite of that older ' old man eloquent' 
 in this defect or effect, or, as Polonius might word it, 
 effect defective. 
 
 "The same inborn and inbred spirit of benignant 
 courtesy was perpetually cropping up in other ways — by- 
 ways some of them, but leading to the same conclusion. 
 His manner to his three daughters, for instance, was the 
 perfection of chivalric respect as well as affection. Very 
 noticeable was his unfailing habit of turning courteously 
 to them and explaining, in his own choicely finished and 
 graphic diction, any casually employed term from the 
 ' dead languages,' which presumably might lie outside 
 the pale of ladies' lore. When I chanced, at dinner that 
 day, to recall the pronounced preference of his sometime 
 friend and almost neighbour, the self-styled Robert the 
 Rhymer who lived at the Lakes, — ' But gooseberry-pie 
 is best,' — at once the father turned to the daughters to 
 remind them that Southey was here pleasantly parody- 
 ing a line of Pindar's, which might furnish water-drinkers 
 with a plea for all occasions, and Temperance Societies 
 with a motto for all time. 
 
 " While sitting with him alone after dinner, he gave 
 me an account of the lets and hindrances which impeded 
 his design of republishing select volumes of his miscel- 
 laneous works — a design which was mainly strengthened 
 and justified by the success of the American edition, 
 published by Messrs. Ticknor & Fields, eight volumes of 
 
222 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 which he showed me with obvious gratification, qualified 
 though it might be by his too conscious exclusion from 
 actual editorial supervision. Grateful he nevertheless 
 was to the enterprising Boston firm for collecting what 
 he had hitherto lacked energy to collect. ' I must explain 
 to you,' he said, 'that I have suffered for the last ten 
 years and more from a most dreadful ailment, to an 
 extent of which I never heard in any other instance ' — a 
 stagnation of blood in the legs, resulting in an effect upon 
 the system of ' intense, intolerable torpor,' during which 
 it was impossible to hold, or at any rate to guide, a pen ; 
 the torpor being, however, compatible with a ' frightful 
 recurrence of long-ago imagery and veriest trifles of the 
 past.' The tendency to sleep was irresistible, but the 
 waking sensations made up a crisis of torture. Relief he 
 found, but slight relief only, in walking from six to seven 
 miles on an average daily. But then the weariness of 
 having to walk so far for a relief so slight ! So many 
 literary schemes he had in contemplation — an elaborate 
 history, and a historical novel among the number — some 
 of which, if not all of which, he would fain finish before 
 he died. Yet of these not one was so much as begun. 
 Could he but begin at once ! Referring to Wordsworth's 
 happy immunity from distracting anxieties and carking 
 cares, his lettered ease and tranquil surroundings, Mr. de 
 Quincey exclaimed, ' Heavens ! had I but ever had his 
 robust strength, and healthy stomach, and sound nerves, 
 with the same glorious freedom from a^ interruptions and 
 embarrassment ! . . . But, in point of\fact, never have I 
 written but against time, pressed by oveFbearing anxieties, 
 and latterly more especially pressed qpwn by physical 
 suffering.' For the last six months hk had reverted to 
 the use of opium in small doses ; but any mitigation of 
 his malady it might afford was avowedly feounterbalanced 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 223 
 
 by the specific suffering that it in turn inflicted. As to 
 the suggested employment of an amanuensis, he replied 
 that he never could dictate, and that his suffering would 
 be increased by the sense of implicating another in the 
 imbroglio of his nervous vacillations. 
 
 " Of current literature, and of men of letters past and 
 present, he talked on that day, and on subsequent ones, 
 with freedom and vivacity. With interest he heard that 
 Professor Wilson, ailing as he was, had been driven into 
 Edinburgh expressly to record his vote for Macaulay ; and 
 much he had to tell me of Christopher North and his 
 ways, and of their joint association with the Lakes and 
 with Blackwood. One grievance, however, against his old 
 comrade-in-arms — for that magazine was politically a 
 militant one — was the trick he had of spoiling a story 
 in the telling. For example, * when I had lodgings over 
 Waterloo Bridge, near the Surrey Theatre, in 18 14, every 
 night towards twelve o'clock a terrific din was caused in 
 and around the playhouse by the explosion scene in a 
 piece that involved the burning of the Kremlin ; regu- 
 larly, to a minute, that explosion awoke a contiguous 
 cock ; this cock, in full crow, awoke another ; the second 
 cock a third, and the definite three an indefinite chorus, 
 or antiphony, of others ; which chorus, again, awoke and 
 provoked a corresponding series of dogs ; and so on with 
 other clamorous voices in succession — gradually swelling 
 the aggregate of tumultuous forces. Now, when Pro- 
 fessor Wilson, who found my story of the midnight din 
 amusing, retold it in his own vigorous but inaccurate 
 fashion, he spoilt the effect by making the uproar 
 synchronous, instead of gradually successive.' John Gait 
 was another of the Blackwood staff discussed, and my 
 host spoke with lively appreciation of the ' Annals of the 
 Parish,' the peculiar interest of which he ascribed to the 
 
224 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 character of the narrator, as in Goldsmith's ' Vicar of 
 Wakefield,' where we are entertained by Dr. Primrose's 
 shrewd insight into his wife's weak points, while he seems 
 to have no inkling of his own absurdities in the polemics 
 of deuterogamy. Of another contributor, the late R. P. 
 Gillies, he spoke with wistful regret, feelingly deploring 
 the straits and shifts to which that ill-starred scholar had 
 been reduced. This, probably, may have been the friend 
 who wrote from the precincts of Holyrood to Mr. de 
 Quincey, to announce his enforced sojourn in that 
 sanctuary, and to whom the reply came, in a style that 
 savours of Charles Lamb, ' I will be with you on Monday, 
 D.V, ; but on Tuesday, D.V. or not' Of Sir William 
 Hamilton much was said, and the strain then heard was 
 in a higher mood. But his friend and critic deemed him 
 less subtle than Ferrier, though more comprehensive, and 
 took exception to his ' unnecessary display of erudite 
 quotations ' all to back up a truism. Dr. Chalmers came 
 in for a word of admiration, on the score of his broad 
 spirit of liberality, and his tolerance of that German 
 theology which, said Mr. de Quincey, ' I studied at my 
 peril thirty or forty years ago.' Admiration was ex- 
 pressed, too, for the ' Christian Year.' Isaac Taylor's 
 works had been read, but without much sense of a re- 
 munerative return. ' It is one of the afflictions of life ' 
 (said he, with a gentle smile), ' that one must read thou- 
 sands of books only to discover that one need not have 
 read them.' 
 
 "Of Talfourd, Mr. de Quincey spoke with evident 
 regard, but thought his ' Ion ' considerably overrated. 
 He was emphatic in praise of Harriet Lee's ' The Ger- 
 man's Tale,' as being almost unequalled in narrative 
 skill, so artistic is the arrangement of the story, and so 
 exquisite the delineation of Josephine's character, ' I 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 22$ 
 
 had believed Miss Lee to have been dead long since, or 
 I should certainly have called upon her in Bath, to offer 
 her my personal respects and to express my gratification 
 at her intellectual prowess.' As, to his own regret, 
 he had assumed Miss Lee to be dead, equally so, in 
 another case, he had assumed Mr. Gillman to be alive 
 when the review of the * Life of Coleridge ' was con- 
 tributed to Blackwood. 'Lockhart wrote to Wilson, 
 "What does De Quincey mean by attacking in that 
 sort of way a man in his grave ? " Now this, When 
 told me, was the first intimation I had of Mr. Gillman's 
 death.' 
 
 " He owned to a decided disrelish for Miss Edgeworth's 
 novels, assuming, as they seem to do, the existence of 
 no higher virtues than prudence, discretion, and the 
 like sober sisterhood. Both her and Lady Morgan' he 
 reckoned inferior in racy Irish portraiture to Maturin 
 (the ' Wild Irish Boy '). Dickens he complained of as 
 repeating himself in 'Bleak House,' then in course of 
 publication ; and a heavier cause of complaint lay in 
 the popular author's dead set against the ' upper classes,' 
 as such, and his glorification at their expense of the 
 idealised working-man. But Dickens he unhesitatingly 
 preferred, because of his genial humanity, to Thackeray, 
 whom I in vain tried to vindicate from the charge of a 
 prevailing * spirit of caustic cynicism.' Mr. de Quincey 
 appeared to regard as simply a crotchety illusion or a 
 blind partiality my remonstrances in favour of the author 
 of ' Pendennis,' when for him I claimed the merit of 
 supreme teriderness and benignity of heart, as well as 
 sarcasm in its severest and irony in its most subtle forms. 
 It has always been a puzzle to me how such a grSacious 
 nature, so delicately responsive to every fine touch, so 
 acutely predisposed to the appeals of genuine pathos. 
 
■226 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 should have missed the force and beauty of what is- 
 tender in Thackeray. 
 
 "I have a note of a sauntering to and fro with Mr. 
 de Quincey in his garden on the forenoon of the 22nd, 
 when more than once he was asked for alms by some 
 passing mendicant, and each time with success. There 
 was something at once deprecating and deferential in 
 the tones with which he accosted the applicants seve- 
 rally, whether men or women, as though he were in 
 fear of hurting their feelings by putting them under an 
 obligation. It was the same when, in my walks with 
 him along the country roads, he was similarly beset. 
 In every case he gave at once, and without inquiry or 
 inspection. He had in former years been shocked by 
 the vehemence with which Edward Irving, as they were 
 walking together in London by night, upon one occasion 
 repelled and reproached a street-beggar. He would 
 probably have owned to being equally shocked by 
 Archbishop Whately's sternly systematic repression of 
 any weakness for such casual relief. But with Whately 
 he would have had very little in common. 
 
 " During the days that I was his guest I could not 
 but take note of the vicissitudes of temperament and 
 spirits to which he was subject. For some time in the 
 morning of each day he appeared to be grievously 
 depressed and prostrate ; the drowsy torpor of which 
 he complained so keenly was then in fullest possession of 
 him, and futile were all endeavours to rouse or to interest 
 him until that tyranny was overpast. Sometimes it 
 extended farther on into the day ; and more than once, 
 when there were visitors at his table, he appeared to be 
 utterly baffled in every effort he made to shake off that 
 oppressive lethargy, as certainly the most persistent and 
 adventurous of those visitors were baffled in their en- 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 227 
 
 deavours to cheer him up and to draw him out. In fact, 
 had I seen him, at this period of life, only in company, I 
 should not have seen him at all. It was when alone with 
 him that I learnt to know him. A walk in the fresh air 
 would by degrees revive him ; but nothing seemed to be 
 nearly so effectual to refresh and re-invigorate him, no 
 spell so potent to disperse his languor, as a cup of good 
 coffee, I have seen it act upon him like a charm, bracing 
 up his energies, clearing up his prospects, accelerating his 
 speech as well as the march of his ideas, and inspiring 
 him with a new fund of that eloquence which held the 
 listener rapt, yet swayed him to and fro at his own 
 sweet will. The eye that had been so heavy, so clouded, 
 so filmy, so all but closed — the eye that had looked so 
 void of life and significance, that had no speculation in 
 it, nothing but a weary look of uttermost lassitude and 
 dejection — now kindled with lambent fire, sparkled with 
 generous animation, twinkled with quiet fun. The at- 
 tenuated frame seemed to expand, and the face, if still 
 pallid, revealed new capacities of spiritual expression, 
 the most noteworthy a dreamy far-off look, as though 
 holding communion with mysteries beyond our ken, with 
 realities behind the veil. 
 
 "In his hours of languishing, when 'drooping woful 
 wan, like one forlorn,' his utterance reminded me of 
 Wordsworth's lines : — 
 
 ' His words came feebly, from a feeble chest. 
 But each in solemn order followed each. 
 With something of a lofty utterance drest — 
 Choice words and measured phrase, above the reach 
 Of ordinary men ; a stately speech.' 
 
 " Music he spoke of as a ' necessity ' to his daily life. If 
 ever again he visited London, it was his hope to frequent 
 the opera, though as to the theatres he felt no kind of 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 attraction in anything they could promise him. The 
 idea of seeing 'Lear' on the stage, environed by the 
 surroundings of mere pleasure-seekers and frivolous play- 
 goers, seemed to him profanity outright. He adverted, 
 however, with cordial admiration to the ' Antigone ' of 
 Miss Helen Faucit, of whom, and of her distinguished 
 husband (Sir Theodore Martin), he spoke in terms of 
 personal regard. The latter he had recently met, I 
 think he said at Mrs. Crowe's, one of the most intimate; 
 at this time, of his literary friends in Edinburgh. To 
 Mrs. Henry Siddons, too, as a graceful, aerial actress, 
 he referred in terms of lively appreciation. Fond as he 
 was of music, he was not often in the room while the 
 two younger of his daughters played or sang during 
 my stay ; but he was a good listener, for all that, in his 
 ' den ' downstairs, and would comment on his favourites 
 among their pieces when he rejoined us. Devout was 
 his reference for Beethoven, who alone, I used to think, 
 was capable, among the great composers, of setting his 
 <iream fugues to music, or of interpreting their hidden 
 mysteries and complex transitions in strains of some 
 choral symphony. Mendelssohn he had not as yet 
 come really to admire ; not even the ' Songs without 
 Words ' seemed to speak home to his heart of heart ; 
 and Jalike to ' May-bells ' and ' Oh, wert thou in the 
 cauld blast,' warbled by sweet sister voices, he could 
 listen without a thrill. Bellini was so far a favourite 
 with him that he often asked his daughters Florence 
 and Emily to give him the well-worn ' Deh Conte ; ' nor 
 would he tire of gems from the ' Don Giovanni,' or of 
 ' Questo Semplice,' or of such time-tried strains as ' Time 
 hath not thinned,' ' O lovely peace,' ' In chaste Susanna's 
 praise,' i' Down the dark waters,' 'By limpid streams/ 
 ' And will he not come again,' ' Birds blithely singing,' 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, 229 
 
 See. He exulted in the fervour of expression and the 
 musician-like touch and facility of execution with which 
 his youngest daughter, still under professional instruc- 
 tion, rendered Beethoven's ' Sonata Pathetica,' Weber's 
 ' Invitation,' and Pergolesi's ' Gloria in Excelsis.' When 
 he had written to invite me to visit him, he had promised 
 me, if I liked such things, music and laughter in abun- 
 dance, on the part of his three daughters* And well 
 was the promise kept. Yet did he not promise me two 
 things — music and laughter ? In effect I found it to be 
 all one, for the laughter itself was music, 
 
 "His eldest daughter's delicate health was at this 
 period a matter of grave anxiety to him ; and the doctor's 
 report of organic mischief in progress at the lungs over- 
 whelmed him with solicitude and misgivings. She kept 
 house for him, and he expressed to me, with the most 
 charming naiveti and innocent candour, his supreme 
 amazement at the economical tact with which, while 
 exercising all the year round a quiet system of modest 
 hospitality, she contrived to make both ends meet- 
 Comfortable as she made his home, and happy as she 
 and her two sisters made himself, he yet lamented 
 piteously the inroads on his time caused by visitors.. 
 His only salvation, he said, from this chronic curse of 
 distracting interruptions would entail the loss to his 
 daughters of their only relaxation. He lamented, too, 
 the smallness of his ' den,' overcrowded with books and 
 papers. In this room he had left himself space only to 
 slide along to his table through piles of volumes. His 
 daughters told me this was the first house he had not 
 built them out of, with these ever-accumulating books. 
 Thrice in Westmoreland had such been their fate ; and 
 they laughed at their own imprudence in leaving a bath 
 in this room of his, which he instantly utilised past 
 
23Q THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 recovery as a receptacle for literary matter heaped up, 
 pressed down, shaken together, and running over. They 
 laughed, too, over his quaint trick of carrying off every 
 scrap of paper he could lay his hands on, any old envelope 
 or newspaper — not infrequently on the bland pretext 
 of 'burning it for you,' in that fire of his which was 
 never allowed to go out the whole year round, and 
 which, in a little room so densely charged with com- 
 bustible matter, was to them a source of some natural 
 sinxiety. 
 
 " It was on July 22nd that I repeated my visit, remain- 
 ing with him at Mavis Bush until the 27th. Meanwhile, 
 he had been gratified by a visit from Mr. Fields of 
 Boston, U.S.A., who, on leaving, had put into Miss de 
 Quincey's hands a cheque for a part of the profits 
 accruing from the sale of the American edition of his 
 works— to be kept from her father's knowledge till he 
 should have returned home from seeing his American 
 guest to the coach. Miss Martineau had spent the after- 
 noon with him the day before, and he spoke of her with 
 real liking in his words and manner. If her size had 
 impressed him, so had her quietness of demeanour, and, 
 adopting Elia's phrase, he designated her the gentle 
 giantess. She, on her part, had been pleasantly im- 
 pressed by his voice, and had exclaimed to his eldest 
 daughter apart, alluding to her own deafness, ' Oh, what 
 a voice ! so clear, so soft, so sweet ; so delightful a 
 contrast to the way people have of bawling to me.' 
 
 " On the 25th he hoped to have taken me to morning 
 service at the Episcopal Chapel on the Duke of Buc- 
 cleuch's grounds, Dalkeith, but was not well enough 
 at the appointed hour, and I accompanied his three 
 daughters to the chapel, driving through Bonnyrigg and 
 Lowton, and coming within view of Cockpen Tower and 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 23 1 
 
 of the Lammermoor Hills by the way. He talked of the 
 service on our return, and showed how far his sympathies 
 went with a moderately ornate ritual. Sound Church of 
 England man as it was his great right and his pride to 
 call himself, he avowed that his antagonism to Rome 
 was mainly as a political system. On this Sunday after- 
 noon he avowed the vehement hatred he had always 
 cherished for the Judaic continuance of a Sabbath in the 
 Judaic sense. Sabbath he hailed as a sublime word, but 
 its exclusive beauty and significance were ruined, to 
 his sense, by the 'base universal usage of it on the 
 most trivial occasions.' For some Presbyterian ministers, 
 notably Dr. Hanna, with whom he had agreeable rela- 
 tions in contributing to the North British Review, his 
 regard was unaffectedly cordial. It must be remem- 
 bered that a Scottish Broad Church party, such as could 
 better have claimed his sympathies as a party, was hardly 
 then in existence. The Norman Macleods and the 
 TuUochs, as a power in the Kirk, were yet to come. He 
 was curious to know more about Professor Maurice, who 
 ' has been talked of to me as the greatest man in the 
 Church of England,' — ^but who thus far had failed to 
 impress him with a sense of real or definite power. All 
 seemed so indefinite when looked closely into. What 
 seemed firm ground gave way beneath your tread. As 
 to Charles Kingsley and the ' Christian Socialists,' ' I 
 am puzzled to know what in the world they would be 
 at.' Mr. Gladstone's splendid powers had a charm for 
 him : 'But what am I to think (1852) of his sympathies 
 with a party abroad which at home would be identified 
 with extreme democracy ? ' Not that extreme democracy 
 in politics, any more than abstract atheism as such, was 
 to Mr. de Quincey otherwise than philosophically in- 
 teresting. One of the periodicals of the day which he 
 
232 THOMAS DE QUINCEV ; 
 
 seemed to read with great zest was The Leader, of the 
 editor of which, Mr. G. H. Lewes, he spoke with inquir- 
 ing eagerness. During our walk together into Edinburgh 
 on the day of my finally quitting Mavis Bush, he 
 expatiated with unprecedented animation on German 
 theology of the advanced school, and freely recognised 
 the ' enormity ' of the difficulties which rigid orthodoxy 
 had to confront. Passing on to speak of practical diffi- 
 culties, he said, 'Frightfully perplexed I am, to this 
 hour, as to what constitutes the so-called appropriation 
 of the benefits of Christ's death. Never could I get any 
 one to clear it up to me. Coleridge was utterly vague on 
 the subject. He talked all about it and about it, but 
 never talked it out, that I could discover. Often have 
 I discussed the question with my mother, a clear-headed 
 and thoughtful woman, devoted to the Evangelical 
 system, and a devout supporter of The Record — which 
 paper I honour, as, in the other extreme, but for the same 
 reason, I do Tlie Leader, for its candid and obvious 
 earnestness in enforcing the views it has so sincerely at 
 heart — but she would utterly fail to comprehend my 
 difficulties. "My dear child," she would repeat, "you 
 have simply to trust in the blood of Christ." "Very 
 well," I would reply, " and I am quite willing ; I 
 reverence Christ ; but what does this trusting mean ? 
 How am I to know exactly what to do ? Upon what 
 specifically am I to take hold to support me when flesh 
 and heart faileth, in the hour of death and at the day 
 of judgment?" Countless different schemes there are to 
 expound this doctrine of trust and of appropriation ; but 
 they remind me of the ancilia at Rome, the eleven copies 
 of the sacred shield or palladium : to prevent the true 
 one being stolen, the eleven were made exactly like it. 
 So with the true doctrine of the atonement : it is lurking 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 233 
 
 among the others that look like it, but who is to say 
 which of them all it is ? ' 
 
 "After taking coffee with me that evening, Mr. de 
 Quincey surpassed himself in copious eloquence and 
 vivid variety of discourse, from grave to gay, from lively 
 to severe. He talked of the history he proposed to 
 write — a * philosophical history of England, perhaps up 
 to the period when Macaulay begins.' The novel he 
 had in contemplation was to be about two prisoners in 
 Austria, in the time of Maria Theresa. He said of his 
 translated novel, *Walladm6r,' that it arose out of a 
 hasty review of the German Original inserted in the 
 London Magazinei Taylor & Hessey, being struck with 
 the extracts as he had Englished them, commissioned 
 him to translate the complete work. The complete work, 
 he said, turned out to be complete trash ; but he did his 
 best) partly recast the story, and gave more point to the 
 conversations. It found a few admirers, among whom 
 it was gratifying to him to reckon Dora Wordsworth 
 (Mrs. Quillinan). 
 
 "As I. walked with him along Princes Street to the 
 Mound on his way home, I noticed the nervous solicitude 
 with which he refrained from any gesture while passing 
 a cabstand that might seem to warrant any driver in 
 concluding himself summoned and engaged. Some un- 
 happy experience of a mistake of this kind may haye 
 been the secret of his disquiet, for evidently he enter- 
 tained a dread of the 'overbearing brutality of these 
 men.' He spoke of his short-sightedness, which at 
 Oxford had been -so marked, that he was rumoured to 
 be a bit of a Jacobin because he failed to 'cap' the 
 Master of his college (Worcester) when he met him, 
 only from sheer inability to recognise him by sight. 
 We paused to look at the display of French and German 
 
234 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 books in Seton's window, and he would willingly have 
 lingered there till sunset, glancing from author to 
 author, with a word for (or against) each. Seeing in 
 Bell & Bradfute's window a copy of Hawthorne's ' Mosses,' 
 about which I had been speaking to his daughters, I 
 went in to buy it, he readily undertaking the light 
 porterage ; and it led him to talk of Hawthorne's genius, 
 and to mention a recent visit of Emerson's, — to neither 
 of whom could he accord quite the degree of admiration 
 claimed for them by the more thoroughgoing of their 
 respective admirers.* Our way lay through George 
 Square to the Meadows, and at the end of 'Lovers' 
 Walk ' he insisted on my not incurring the fatigue of 
 accompanying him farther. It was between eight and 
 nine on that lovely July evening that I took leave — my 
 last leave — of the man to whom I owed so much. At 
 the very moment of parting, all seemed to me like a 
 dream : that we had ever met, that we were now parting. 
 Could it all be but the baseless fabric of a vision, and 
 was this the breaJc-up, to leave not a rack behind ? 
 
 ' The old man still stood talking by my side ; 
 But now his voice to me was like a stream 
 Scarce heard ; nor word for word could I divide ; 
 And the whole body of the man did seem 
 Like one whom I had met with in a dream.' 
 
 "The parting was over, and he went on his way. 
 Lingering, I watched that receding figure, as it dimmed 
 in the distance. The last I saw of him, he had opened 
 Hawthorne's book, and went along reading as he walked. 
 In that attitude I lost sight of him. He went on his 
 way, and I saw him no more. 
 
 "Francis Jacox." 
 
 * Later than this, Mr. de Quincey read the " Scarlet Letter " 
 and other works of Hawthorne with great access of admiration. 
 —Ed. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 233 
 
 JAMES PAYN'S REMINISCENCES. 
 
 (From " Literary Recollections.") 
 
 In the ensuing summer (1853), after the publication 
 of another volume of poems, I visited Edinburgh and 
 called upon De Qulncey, to whom I had a letter 
 of introduction from Miss Mitford. He was at that 
 time residing at Lasswade, a few miles from the town, 
 and I went thither by coach. He lived a secluded 
 life, and even at that date had become to the world 
 a name rather than a real personage ; but it was a 
 great name. Considerable alarm agitated my youthful 
 heart as I drew near the house : I felt like Burns on the 
 occasion when he was first about " to dinner wi' a lord " ; 
 it was a great honour, but something rather to be talked 
 about afterwards than to be enjoyed in itself. There 
 were passages in De Quincey's writings which showed 
 that the English Opium-Eater was not always in a 
 dreamy state, but could be severe and satirical. My 
 apprehensions, however, proved to ^be utterly ground- 
 less, for a more gracious and genial personage I never 
 met. Picture to yourself a very diminutive man, care- 
 lessly — very carelessly — dressed ; a face lined, careworn, 
 and so expressionless that it reminded one of that " chill, 
 changeless brow, where cold obstruction's apathy appals 
 the gazing mourner's heart " — a face like death in life. 
 The instant he began to speak, however, it lit up as 
 though by electric light ; this came from his marvellous 
 
236 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 eyes, brighter and more intelligent (though by fits) than 
 I have ever seen in any other mortal. They seemed to 
 me to glow with eloquence. He spoke of my introducer, 
 of Cambridge, of the Lake Country, and of English 
 poets. Each theme was interesting to me, but made 
 infinitely more so by some apt personal reminiscence. 
 As for the last-named subject, it was like talking of the 
 Olympian gods to one not only cradled in their creed 
 but who had mingled with them, himself half an 
 immortal. . 
 
 The announcement of luncheon was perhaps for the 
 first time in my young life, unwelcome to me. Miss 
 De Quincey did the honours with gracious hospitality, 
 pleased, I think, to find that her father had so rapt a 
 listener. I was asked what wine I would take, and not 
 caring which it was, I was about to pour myself out a 
 glass from the decanter that stood next to me. " You 
 must not take that," whispered my hostess, "it is not 
 port wine, as you think." It was in fact laudanum, to 
 which De Quincey presently helped himself with the 
 greatest sang-froid. I regarded him aghast, with much 
 the same feelings as those with which he himself had 
 watched the Malay at Grasmere eat the cake of opium, 
 and with the same harmless result. The liquor seemed 
 to stimulate rather than dull his eloquence. As I took 
 my leave, after a most enjoyable interview, to meet the 
 coach, I asked him whether he ever came by it into 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 " What 1 " he answered, in a tone of extreme surprise ; 
 " by coach ? Certainly not." 
 
 I was not aware of his peculiarities ; but the succession 
 of commonplace people and their pointless observations 
 were in fact intolerable to him. They did not bore him 
 in the ordinary sense, but seemed, as it were, to outrage 
 
HIS .FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 237 
 
 his mind. To me, to whom the study of human nature 
 in any form had become even then attractive, this was 
 unintelligible, and I suppose I showed it in my face, for 
 he proceeded to explain matters. "Some years ago," 
 he said, " I was standing on the pier at Tarbet, on Loch 
 Lomond, waiting for the steamer. A stout old lady 
 joined me ; I felt that she would presently address me ; 
 and she did. Pointing to the smoke of the steamer, 
 which was making itself seen above the next headland, 
 * There she comes,' she said ; ' La, sir ! if you and I had 
 seen that fifty years ago, how wonderful we should have 
 thought it ! ' Now the same thing," added my host, with 
 a shiver, " might happen to me any day, and that is why 
 I always avoid a public conveyance." 
 
 My interview with De Quincey I was not likely to 
 forget, but I never flattered myself that he would have 
 any remembrance of his youthful visitor. A few years 
 afterwards, however, I received from him an entire 
 edition of his works, with a most gracious allusion (in 
 the "Autobiographical Sketches") to my poems. "The 
 ' Story of the Student of St Bees,' " he says, " has been 
 made the subject of a separate poem by my friend, Mr. 
 James Payn, of Trinity College. The volume contains 
 thoughts of great beauty, too likely to escape the vapid 
 and irreflective reader," This good-natured eulogy rang 
 in my ears for many a day, nor did my college friends 
 forget, at all events, one portion of it ; with a monstrous 
 misapplication of terms, they henceforth dubbed me 
 "the vapid and irreflective reader." I remember my 
 mother showing, with pardonable pride, this criticism of 
 De Quincey to a dean of the English Church, who was 
 then at the head of the High Church party at Oxford. 
 "Very flattering to your son, madam, no doubt," he 
 said J "but who is this Mr. de Quincey ? " 
 
238 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Such ignorance was, of course, unpardonable in my 
 eyes, but it is quite amazing how ignorant so-called 
 scholars often are of matters connected with the litera- 
 ture of their own country ; in many cases they even fail 
 to understand its beauties when they are pointed out to 
 them, while, on the other hand, anything written in a 
 dead language, however dull and poor, they value at a 
 fancy price. I was at the time undergoing the infliction 
 of " The Seven against Thebes " in the Trinity lecture- 
 room ; the play was introduced to us under the most 
 favourable circumstances, for W. G, Clark was our 
 lecturer, who had the art of illustrating everything he 
 had to discourse upon in the happiest manner. I ques- 
 tioned him in private as to what he really thought of it. 
 " Do pray, be honest with me," I said ; " the play is 
 by .^schylus, I know, but is it not rubbish ? " " It is 
 certainly not his masterpiece," was all I could get out of 
 him, accompanied, however, with a drop of the eye that 
 spoke volumes. It was hardly to be expected that an 
 augur should have been more frank, save to another 
 augur. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 239 
 
 SOUVENIRS AND ANECDOTES. 
 
 By various FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 
 
 There is a speculation In the eyes, a curl of the lip, and 
 a general character in the outline that reminds one of 
 some portraits of Voltaire. . . . He looks, thinks, writes, 
 talks, and walks, eats and drinks and no doubt sleeps 
 philosophically, i.e. deliberately. There is nothing 
 abrupt about his motions ; he goes and comes calmly 
 and quietly ; like the phantom in Hamlet, he is here — he 
 is there — he is gone! So it is with his discourse. He 
 speaks slowly, clearly, and with very marked emphasis ; 
 the tide of talk flows like Denham's river, "strong 
 without rage, without o'erflowing full." — THOMAS HoOD 
 {Literary Reminiscences). 
 
 When it was my frequent and ^reeable duty to call 
 on Mr. de Quincey .... and I have found him at 
 home, quite at home, in the midst of a German Ocean 
 of Literature in a storm, flooding all the floor, the tables, 
 billows of books tossing, tumbling, surging open, on 
 such occasions I have willingly listened by the hour 
 whilst the philosopher, standing with his eyes fixed on 
 one side of the room, seemed to be less speaking than 
 reading from a " handwriting on the wall" Now and 
 then he would diverge, for a Scotch mile or two, to 
 the right or left, till I was tempted to inquire with 
 
240 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 "Peregrine" in John Bull, "Do you never deviate?" 
 but he always came safely back to the point where he 
 had left, not lost the scent, and thence hunted his topic 
 to the end. But look ! we are in the small hours, and a 
 change comes o'er the spirit of that " old familiar face." 
 A faint hectic tint leaves the cheek, the eyes are a degree 
 dimmer, and each is surrounded by a growing shadow ; 
 signs of the waning influence of that potent drug whose 
 stupendous pleasures and enormous pains have been so 
 eloquently described by the English Opium-Eater.— 
 Thomas Hood {Literary Reminiscences). 
 
 When he sate, you would have taken him, by candle- 
 light, for the beautifulest little child ; blue-eyed, spark- 
 ling face, had there not been a something, too, which 
 said " Eccovi — this child has been in hell,"- — THOMAS 
 Carlyle {Reminiscences). 
 
 During the winter of 1815-16 (or the next) Mr. de 
 Quincey accompanied his friend, the author of the " Isle / 
 of Palms," from Westmoreland to Edinburgh. I had then 
 an opportunity of observing the literary character in an 
 entirely new phasis, for up -to that time, De Quincey, 
 though he had spent long years in assiduous study, and 
 by his friends was regarded as a powerful author, had 
 not, so far as I know, published a single line. He 
 seemed, indeed, to live for the sake of the labour alone, 
 and to fling overboard all considerations of the palma 
 or pecunia. His various literary compositions, written 
 in his exemplary hand (the best I ever saw, except 
 Southey's) on little scraps of paper, must have reached 
 to a great extent, but in his own estimation they were 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. ,241 
 
 by no means " ready for the press ; " like an over-cautious 
 general he withheld his fire, and remained multa et 
 pulchra minans. Not only for this reason, but in other 
 respects Mr. de Quincey seemed to me to bring out the 
 literary character in a new light. Very decisively he 
 realized my plan of moving in a separate world (having, 
 no doubt, realities of its own) ; moreover, he neither 
 spoke nor acted in the every-day world like any one 
 else, for which, of course, I greatly honoured him. He 
 was then in the habit of taking opium daily as an article 
 of food, and the drug, though used for years, had scarcely 
 begun to tell on his constitution, by those effects which, 
 sooner or later, overtake every one of its persevering 
 votaries ; and which, when they once appear, make 
 quick work in demolishing together the man physical 
 and the man intellectual ; the latter being reduced to 
 the pitiable plight of a musician who essays to play by 
 means of a harp unstrung and broken. But in his case, 
 it had not worked any such evils as yet, and in after 
 years, though not without a long and tough battle, Mr. 
 de Quincey succeeded in vanquishing the narcotic devil. 
 His voice was extraordinary ; it came as if from 
 dreamland ; but it was the most musical and impressive 
 of voices. In convivial life, what then seemed to me the 
 most remarkable trait of De Quincey's character, was 
 the power he possessed of easily changing the tone of 
 ordinary thought and conversation into that of his own 
 dreamland, till his auditors, with wonder, found them- 
 selves moving pleasantly along with him in a sphere of 
 which they might have heard and read, perhaps, but 
 which had ever appeared to them inaccessible, and far, 
 far away ! Seeing that he was always good-natured and 
 social, he would take part, at commencement, in any 
 sort of tattle or twaddle. The talk might be of " beeves," 
 
 R 
 
242 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 and he could grapple with them if expected to do so, 
 but his musical cadences were not in keeping with such 
 work, and in a few minutes (not without some strictly- 
 logical sequence) he could escape at will from beeves to 
 butterflies, and thence to the soul's immortality, to Plato, 
 and Kant, and Schelling, and Fichte, to Milton's early 
 years and Shakespeare's sonnets, to Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge, to Homer and ^schylus, to St. Thomas of 
 Aquin, St, Basil, and St. Chrysostom. But he by no 
 means excluded themes from real life, according to his 
 view of that life, but would recount profound mysteries 
 from his own experinces — visions that had come over 
 him in bis loneliest walks among the mountains, , and 
 passages within his own personal knowledge, illustrating, 
 if not proving, the doctrines of dreams, of warnings, of 
 second sight, and mesmerism. And whatever the subject 
 might be, every one of his sentences (or of his chapters 
 I might say) was woven into the most perfect logical 
 texture, and uttered in a tone of sustained melody. 
 
 Such powers and acquirements could not fail to excite 
 wonder at Edinburgh* He had, indeed, studied " all 
 such books as are never read" in that enlightened 
 capital, and was the first friend I had ever met who 
 could profess to have a command over the German 
 language, and who consequently was able (ex cathedra) 
 to corroborate my notions of the great stores that were 
 contained therein. I flatter myself that he found our 
 house not altogether uncongenial, as he was kind enough 
 to visit there more frequently than in any other. — R. P. 
 Gillies {Memoirs of a Literary Veteran). \ 
 
 "Oh for one hour of Dundee ! " One hour of De Quincey 
 — better three hours, from nine till midnight — for a rapt 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 343 
 
 listener to be "under the wand of a magician," spell- 
 bound by his wonderful affluence of talk such as that of 
 the fairy whose lips dropped rubies and diamonds. 
 Mkny a night have I, with my wife by my side, sat 
 listening to the equable flow of his discourse, both of us 
 utterly forgetting the usual regularity of our habits, and 
 hearing the drowsy watchman's " past one o'clock " (for 
 the old watchman then walked his round) before we 
 parted. There was another newly acquired intimate of 
 that time — Barry St. Leger — who also had contributed 
 to the Quarterly Magazine. Our friendship was of the 
 warmest nature during the remainder of his short life. 
 The wit-combats between him and De Quincey were 
 most amusing. Never were two men greater contrasts. 
 in their intellectual characters. The one passionately 
 rhetorical, the other calmly logical ; the one making a 
 fierce onslaught upon his apparently unwatchful oppo- 
 nent, the other with a slight turn of his wrist striking 
 the sword out of his adversary's hand, leaving him 
 defenceless. In the ordinary intercourse of society, St. 
 Leger was self-possessed, perfectly at his ease, ready for 
 every emergency, a man of the world, yet with a heart 
 for friendship as warm as that of a schoolboy. De 
 Quincey, vast as were his acquirements, intuitive as was 
 his appreciation of character and the motives of human 
 actions, unembarrassed as was "his demeanour, pleasant 
 and even mirthful his table-talk, was as helpless in every 
 position of responsibility as when he nightly paced 
 " stony-hearted Oxford Street " looking for the lost one. 
 He was constantly beset by idle fears and vain imagin- 
 ings. His sensitiveness was so extreme, in combination 
 with the almost ultra-courtesy of a gentleman, that he 
 hesitated to trouble a servant with any personal requests 
 without a long prefatory apology. My family were in 
 
 R 2 
 
244 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 the country in the summer of 1825 when he was staying 
 at my house in Pall Mall East. A friend or two had 
 met him at dinner, and I had walked part of the way 
 home with one of them. When I returned I tapped at his 
 chamber door to bid him good-night. He was sitting at 
 the open window, habited as a prize-fighter when he 
 enters the ring. "You will take cold," I exclaimed. 
 " Where is your shirt ? " "I have not a shirt — my shirts 
 are unwashed." " But why not tell the servant to send 
 them to the laundress ? " " Ah ! how could I presume 
 to do that in Mrs. Knight's absence ? " 
 
 One more illustration of the eccentricity of De Quincey. 
 I had been to Windsor, On my return I was told that 
 Mr. de Quincey had taken his box away, leaving word 
 that he was gone home. I knew that he was waiting 
 for a remittance from his mother, which would satisfy 
 some clamorous creditors and enable him to rejoin his 
 family at Grasmere. Two or three days after I heard 
 that he was still in town. I obtained a clue to his 
 hiding-place, and found him in a miserable lodging on 
 the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge. He had received a 
 large draft on a London banker at twenty-one days' 
 sight. He summoned courage to go to Lombard Street, 
 and was astonished to learn that he could not obtain the 
 amount till the draft became due. A man of less 
 sensitive feeling would have returned to Pall Mall East 
 and have there waited securely and comfortably till I 
 came. How to frame his apology to our trusty domestic 
 was the difficulty that sent him into the den where I 
 found him. He produced the draft to me from out of 
 his Bible, which he thought was the best hiding-place. 
 " Come to me to-morrow morning,, and I will give you 
 the cash." "What .' How ? Can such a thing be possible ? 
 Can the amount be got before the draft is due ? " " Never 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 245 
 
 fear — come you — and then get home as fast as you can." 
 — Charles Knight {Passages of a Working Life). 
 
 His tastes were very simple, though a little troublesome, 
 at least to the servant who prepared his repast. Coffee, 
 boiled rice, and milk, and a piece of mutton from the 
 loin were the materials that invariably formed his diet. 
 The cook, who had an audience with him daily, received 
 her instructions in silent awe, quite overpowered by his 
 manner ; for, had he been addressing a duchess, he could 
 scarcely have spoken with more deference. He would 
 couch his request in such terms as these : — " Owing to 
 dyspepsia, afflicting my system, and the possbility of 
 any additional derangement of the stomach taking place, 
 consequences incalculably distressing would arise, so 
 much so, indeed, as to increase nervous irritation, and 
 prevent me from attending to matters of overwhelming 
 importance, if you do not remember to cut the mutton 
 in a diagonal rather than in a longitudinal form." — Mrs. 
 Gordon {Memoir of Wilson). 
 
 I remember his coming to Gloucester Place* one 
 stormy night. He remained hour after hour in the vain 
 expectation that the waters would assuage and the hurly- 
 burly cease. There was nothing for it but that our 
 visitor should remain all night. The professor ordered 
 a room to be prepared for him, and they found each 
 other such good company that this accidental detention 
 was prolonged, without further difficulty for the greater 
 part of a year. During this visit some of his eccentricities 
 
 * The residence of Professor Wilson. 
 
246 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 did not escape observation. For example, he rarely 
 appeared at the family meals, preferring to dine in his 
 own room at his own hour, not unfrequently turning 
 night into day. 
 
 The time when he was most brilliant was generally 
 towards the early morning hours ; and then, more than 
 once, my father arranged his supper-parties so that, sitting 
 till three or four in the morning, he brought Mr. de 
 Quincey to that point at which in charm and power of 
 conversation he was so truly wonderful. — Mrs. Gordon 
 {Memoir of Wilson). 
 
 When I had made a few visits to him, Mr. de Quincey 
 was so kind as to take some particular notice of me ; 
 and afterwards when he wrote his Grasmere article about 
 "George and Sarah Green" (1839), he spoke to me of 
 the subject, and read me a passage from the proof before 
 it appeared in Tait, Mr. de Quincey occasionally made 
 his appearance at the warehouse of Mr. Tait, where he 
 would sometimes be asked to dinner, for which some 
 special light dishes had to be provided for him, as he 
 was unable to partake of ordinary fare. On these rare 
 occasions, when Mr. Tait could prevail on Mr. de Quincey 
 to be entertained, I was sent to the master's residence to 
 inform the housekeeper, so that she might make some 
 special preparations ; but on one inconvenient occasion 
 Mr. de Quincey invited himself. Mr. Tait had invited 
 a friend, well known for his love of the good things of 
 this life, to dine with him, and before leaving in the 
 morning told his housekeeper, who also officiated as his 
 cook, to be sure and have something nice for them. 
 About one o'clock, however, Mr. de Quincey arrived at 
 Walker Street, and told the housekeeper, who was a new 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 247 
 
 hand, and did not know him, that he would stay to 
 -dinner. Thinking he was the expected guest, she said, 
 " Oh yes, sir, I know, and I am just going to send out 
 for a gigot of black-faced mutton and a moor-fowl; 
 dinner is to be at five o'clock." " Pardon me, madam," 
 said the ever-courteous Opium-Eater, " the state of my 
 stomach, which I may tell you is a perpetual source of 
 woe to me, will prevent my eating flesh-meats of the 
 kind you mention. If, therefore, you could procure a 
 portion of tripe, and stew it for me, as also a pudding of 
 the batter or custard kind, I should indeed be grateful 
 to you." The housekeeper, knowing that her master 
 would be perfectly satisfied with the cold roast beef 
 stored in her larder, acted at once on Mr. de Quincey's 
 suggestion, and procured the wished-for dish of tripe 
 instead of the mutton and game, wondering much at the 
 exceeding politeness of the gentleman, whom she had 
 never seen before. Mr. Tait and his guest duly arrived ; 
 he was not a little surprised at finding Mr. de Quincey 
 comfortably seated in his drawing-room, reading a proof 
 and laughed heartily when the housekeeper mentioned 
 what had occurred. The Opium-Eater gave an elaborate 
 explanation ; but the guest who expected to " dine " was 
 not appeased until he found that the talk of De Quincey 
 made ample amends for the loss of his dinner. 
 
 Mr. de Quincey was wont to frequent a small hotel 
 called the " Guildford Arms," in Register Street (situated 
 near the renowned tavern which was the scene of the 
 " Noctes Ambrosianae," in Gabriel's Road) in search of 
 his favourite tripe ; and it was one of the places in 
 which Mr. de Quincey was occasionally pleased to hide 
 himself. 
 
 One of the numerous "warehouse stories" about the 
 English Opium-Eater may be worth repeating,, although 
 
248 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 the circumstance occurred before my day. It was told 
 me by my fellow-apprentice, who, one morning, upon his 
 arrival at the shop to open it found a " noddy " (a one- 
 horse hackney carriage) standing before the door with 
 the blinds down. After a few minutes had elapsed the 
 occupant contrived to attract the attention of George, 
 and blandly addressed him somewhat in this fashion : — 
 
 " I am Mr. de Quincey, and I presume that you are 
 one of the young gentlemen who assist Mr. Tait in 
 conducting his business. I am at this moment much 
 embarrassed for want of a sum of money ; the difficulty 
 will not, however, I can assure yoju, be permanent, but it 
 is in the meantime most urgent, and I fancied that even 
 at this early hour I should be able to obtain the required 
 amount by coming here." George thought he might be 
 wanting a five-pound note at least, so he said to him 
 anxiously : " How much do you require, Mr. de 
 Quincey?" "You see, young sir, in arriving at my 
 journey's end I shall require to pay the coachman his 
 fare, including a small gratuity to himself, not less than 
 three shillings in all, and having but half-a-crown in my 
 pocket, I am anxious to be accommodated with the loan 
 of sixpence." Not less astonished than relieved, George 
 handed the coin to him at once, and after thanking his 
 benefactor profusely for his great politeness, Mr. de 
 Quincey drove off. 
 
 I now take leave of the English Opium-Eater, the 
 chief features of his life being well known. Owing to 
 his kindness our acquaintance ripened, and in after days, 
 both during the period of his contrubutions to Tait, and 
 also while his papers were appearing in Hogg's instructor, 
 to which periodical I was, myself, a contributor, we had 
 many conversations. Often in Princes Street, of an 
 evening, if the street was not thronged, he would take a 
 
HIS I"RIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. S^ 
 
 turn or two with me, speaking his beautiful English, and 
 talking to me in his engaging voice (as if I had been in 
 all respects his equal) upon literary subjects, his informa- 
 tion seeming to be boundless, I shall never forget one 
 of those evenings he allowed me to walk with him, an 
 evening when he spoke of Joan of Arc, a favourite theme 
 on which he contributed a paper to Taifs Magazine. 
 No feature of Mr. de Quincey's character was more 
 marked, perhaps, than his evident desire to put his 
 inferiors on a footway of perfect equality. He did all 
 the talking, but he talked in such a way as to inform, 
 but never to make you feel your ignorance. Such, at 
 all events, was my experience of this remarkable man. — 
 J. G. Bertram {Some Memoirs of Books, Authors, and 
 Events). 
 
250 THOMAS DE QUINCEYJ 
 
 "THOMAS PAPAVERIUS." 
 
 (From THE BOOK HUNTER.) 
 
 By JOHN HILL BURTON, LL.D. 
 
 The next slide of the lantern is to represent a quite 
 peculiar and abnormal case. It introduces a strangely 
 fragile, unsubstantial and puerile figure, wherein, how- 
 ever, resided one of the most potent and original spirits 
 that ever frequented a tenement of clay. He shall be 
 called, on account of associations that may or may not 
 be found out, Thomas Papaverius. But how to make 
 palpable to the ordinary human being one so signally 
 divested of all the material and common characteristics 
 of his race, yet so nobly endowed with its rarer and 
 loftier attributes, almost paralyses the pen at the very 
 beginning. 
 
 In what mood and shape shall he be brought forward ? 
 Shall it be as first we met at the table of LucuUus, 
 whereto he was seduced by the false pretence that he 
 would there meet with one who entertained novel and 
 anarchical opinions regarding the Golden Ass of Apu- 
 leius ? No one speaks of waiting dinner for him. He 
 will pome and depart of his own sweet will, neither 
 burdened with punctualities, nor burdening others by 
 exacting them. The festivities of the afternoon are far 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 2SI 
 
 on when a commotion is heard in the hall as if some dog 
 or other stray animal had forced its way in. The instinct ' 
 of a friendly guest tells him of the arrival — he opens the 
 door and fetches in the little stranger. What can it be ? 
 a street boy of some sort ? His costume, in fact, is a boy's 
 duffle great-coat, very threadbare, with a hole in it and 
 buttoned tight to the chin, where it meets the fragments of 
 a parti-coloured belcher handkerchief; on his feet are 
 list-shoes covered with snow, for it is a stormy winter 
 night ; and the trousers — some one suggests that they are 
 inner linen garments blackened with writing-ink, but that 
 Papaverius never would have been at the trouble so to 
 disguise them. What can be the theory of such a 
 costume ? The simplest thing in the world — it consisted 
 of the fragments of apparel nearest at hand. Had 
 chance thrown to him a court single-breasted coat, with 
 a bishop's apron, a kilt and top-boots, in these he would 
 have made his entry. 
 
 The first impression that a boy has appeared vanishes 
 instantly. Though in one of the sweetest and most 
 genial of his essays he shows how every man retains in 
 him so much of the child he orginally was — ^and he 
 himself retained a great deal of that primitive simplicity 
 — it was buried within the depths of his heart — not 
 visible externally. On the contrary, on one occasion 
 when he corrected an erroneous reference to an event 
 as being a century old, by saying he recollected its 
 occurrence, one felt almost a surprise at the necessary 
 limitation in his age, so old did he appear, with his 
 arched brow loaded with thought, and the countless 
 little wrinkles which engrained his skin, gathering 
 thickly round the curiously expressive and subtle lips. 
 These lips are speedily opened by some casual remark, 
 and presently the flood of talk passes forth from 
 
253 THOMAS DE QUINCEY; , . 
 
 them, free, clear and continuous — never rising into 
 declamation — never losing a certain mellow earnest- 
 ness, and all consisting of sentences as exquisitely 
 jointed together as if they were destined to challenge 
 the criticism of the remotest posterity. Still the hours 
 stride over each other, and still flows on the stream of 
 gentle rhetoric, as if it were labitur et labetur in omne 
 volubilis (Bvum. It is now far into the night, and slight 
 hints and suggestions are propagated about separation 
 and home-going. The topic starts new ideas on the 
 progress of civilisation, the effect of habit on man in all 
 ages, and the power of the domestic affections. De- 
 scending from generals to the special, he could testify 
 to the inconvenience of late hours ; for, was it not the 
 other night that, coming to what was, or what he 
 believed to be, his own door, he knocked and knocked, 
 but the old woman within either couldn't or wouldn't 
 hear him, so he scrambled over a wall, and having taken 
 his repose in a furrow, was able to testify to the extreme 
 unpleasantness of such a couch. The predial groove 
 might indeed nourish kindly the infant seeds and shoots 
 of the peculiar vegetable to which it was appropriated, 
 but was not a comfortable place of repose for adult 
 man. 
 
 Shall I try another sketch of him, when, travel-stained 
 and footsore, he glided in on us one night like a shadow, 
 the child by the fire gazing on him with round eyes of 
 astonishment, and suggesting that he should get a 
 penny and go home — a proposal which he subjected to 
 some philosophical criticism very far wide of its practical 
 tenor. How far he had wandered since he had last 
 refreshed himself, or even whether he had eaten food 
 that day, were matters on which there was no getting 
 articulate utterance from him. Though his costume 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 253 
 
 was muddy however, and his communications about the 
 material wants of life very hazy, the ideas which he had 
 stored up during his wandering poured themselves forth 
 as clear and sparkling, both in logic and language, 
 as the purest fountain that springs from a highland 
 rock. 
 
 How that wearied, worn, little body was to be re- 
 freshed was a difficult problem ; soft food disagreed 
 with him — the hard he could not eat. Suggestions 
 pointed at length to the solution of that vegetable 
 unguent to which he had given a sort of lustre, and it 
 might be supposed that there were some fifty cases of 
 acute toothache to be treated in the house that night. 
 How many drops ? Drops ! nonsense, if the wine- 
 glasses of the establishment were not beyond the 
 ordinary normal size, there was no risk — and so the 
 weary is at rest for a time. 
 
 At early morn a triumphant cry of Eureka ! calls me 
 to his place of rest. With his unfailing instinct he has 
 got at the books, and lugged a considerable heap of 
 them around him. That one which specially claims his 
 attention — my best bound quarto — is spread upon a 
 piece of bedroom furniture, readily at hand, and of 
 sufficient height to let him pore over it, as he lies 
 recumbent on the floor, with only one article of attire to 
 separate him from the condition in which Archimedes, 
 according to the popular story, shouted the same 
 triumphant cry. He had discovered a very remarkable 
 anachronism in the commonly received histories of a 
 very important period. As he expounded it, turning up 
 his unearthly face from the book with an almost painful 
 expression of grave interest, it occurred to me that I had 
 seen something like the scene in Dutch paintings of the 
 temptation of St. Anthony. 
 
254 THOMAS DE QUINCEY: 
 
 Suppose the scene changed to a pleasant country 
 house, where the enlivening talk has made a guest 
 forget 
 
 "The lang Scots miles, 
 The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles" 
 
 that He between him and his place of rest. He must be 
 instructed in his course, but the instruction reveals more 
 difficulties than it removes, and there is much doubt 
 and discussion, which Papaverius at once clears up as 
 effectually as he had ever dispersed a cloud of logical 
 sophisms ; and this time the feat is performed by a 
 stroke of the thoroughly practical, which looks like 
 inspiration — he will accompany the forlorn traveller, and 
 lead him through the difficulties of the way — for have 
 not midnight wanderings and musings made him 
 familiar with all its intricacies ? Roofed by a huge 
 wideawake, which makes his tiny figure look like the 
 stalk of some great fungus, with a lantern of more than 
 common dimensions in his hand, away he goes down the 
 wooded path, up the steep bank, along the brawling 
 stream, and across the waterfall — and ever as he goes 
 there comes from him a continued stream of talk, con- 
 cerning the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and other 
 kindred matters; Surely if we two were seen by any 
 human eyes, it must have been supposed that some 
 gnome, or trolly or kelpie, was luring the listener to his 
 doom. The worst of such affairs as this, was the con- 
 sciousness that, when left,i the old man would continue 
 walking on until, weariness overcoming him, he would 
 take his rest, wherever that happened, like some poor 
 mendicant. He used to denounce, with his most fervid 
 eloquence, that barbarous and .brutal provision of the 
 law of England, which rendered sleeping in the open 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 255 
 
 air an act of vagrancy, and so punishable, if the sleeper 
 eould not give- a satisfactory account of himself-^a thing 
 which Papaverius never could give under any circum- 
 stances. After all, I fear this is an attempt to describe 
 the indescribable. It was the commonest of sayings 
 when any of his friends were mentioning to each other, 
 "his last," and creating mutual shrugs of astonishment, 
 that, were one to attempt to tell all about him, no man 
 would believe it, so separate would the whole be from 
 all the normal conditions of human nature. 
 
 The difficulty becomes more inextricable in passing 
 from specific little incidents to an estimation of the 
 general nature of the ^man. The logicians lucidly 
 describe definition as being per genus et differentiam. 
 You have the characteristics in which all of the genus 
 partake as common ground, and then you individualise 
 your object by showing in what it differs from the others 
 of the genus. But we are denied this standard for 
 Papaverius, so entirely did he stand apart, divested of 
 the ordinary characteristics of social man — of those 
 characteristics without which the human race as a body 
 could not get on or exist. For instance, those who 
 knew him a little might call him a loose man in money 
 matters ; those who knew him closer laughed at the idea 
 of coupling any notion of pecuniary or other like 
 responsibility with his nature. You might as well 
 attack the character of the nightingale, which may have 
 nipped up your five-pound note and torn it into shreds 
 to serve' as nest-building material. Only immediate 
 craving necessities could ever extract from him an 
 acknowledgment of the common vulgar agencies by 
 which men subsist in civilised society ; and only while 
 the necessity lasted did the acknowledgment exist. 
 Take just one example, which will render this clearer 
 
2S6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 than any generalities. He arrives very late at a friend's 
 door, and on gaining admission — a process in which he 
 often endured impediments — he represents with his 
 usual silver voice and measured rhetoric the absolute 
 necessity of his being then and there invested with a 
 sum of money in the current coin of the realm, the 
 amount limited, from the nature of his necessities, which 
 he very freely states, to seven shillings and sixpence. 
 Discovering, or fancying he discovers, signs that his 
 eloquence is likely to be unproductive, he is fortunately 
 reminded that, should there be any difficulty in connec- 
 tion with security for the repayment of the loan, he is at 
 that moment in possession of a document, which he is pre- 
 pared to deposit with the lender — a document calculated, 
 he cannot doubt, to remove a feeling of anxiety which the 
 most prudent person could experience in the circum- 
 stances. After a rummage in his pockets, which 
 develops miscellaneous and varied, but as yet by no 
 means valuable possessions, he at last comes to the 
 object of his search, a crumpled bit of paper, and spreads 
 it out — a fifty-pound bank-note ! The friend, who knew 
 him well, was of opinion that, had he, on delivering over 
 the seven shillings and sixpence, received the bank-note 
 he would never have heard anything more of the trans- 
 action from the other party. It was also his opinion 
 that, before coming to a personal friend, the owner of the 
 note had made several efforts to raise money on it among 
 persons who might take a purely business view of such 
 transactions ; but the lateness of the hour, and some- 
 thing in the appearance of the thing altogether, had 
 induced these mercenaries to forget their cunning, and 
 decline the transaction. 
 
 He stretched till it broke the proverb that to give 
 quickly is as good as to give twice. His giving was 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 2$? 
 
 quick enough on the rare occasions when he had where- 
 withal to give, but then the act was final, and could not 
 be repeated. If he suffered in his own person from this 
 peculiarity, he suffered still more in his sympathies, for 
 he was full of them to all breathing creatures, and, like 
 poor Goldy, it was agony to him to hear the beggar's cry 
 of distress, and to hear it without the means of assuaging 
 it, though in a departed fifty pounds there were doubtless 
 the elements for appeasing many a street wail. All 
 sums of money are measured by him through the 
 common standard of immediate use ; and with more 
 solemn pomp of diction than he applied to the bank- 
 note, might he inform you that, with the gentleman 
 opposite, to whom he had hitherto been entirely a 
 stranger, but who happened to be nearest to him when 
 the exigency occurred to him, he had just succeeded in 
 negotiating a loan of "twopence." He was and is a 
 great authority in political economy. I have known great 
 anatomists and physiologists as careless of their health 
 as he was of his purse, whence I have inferred,that some- 
 thing more than a knowledge of the abstract of political 
 economy is necessary to keep some men from pecuniary 
 imprudence, and that something more than a knowledge 
 of the received principles of physiology is necessary to 
 bring others into a course of perfect sobriety and general 
 obedience to the laws of health. Further, Papaverius 
 had an extraordinary insight into practical human life ; 
 not merely in the abstract, but in the concrete; not 
 merely as a philosopher of human nature, but as one who 
 saw into those who passed him in the walk of life with 
 the kind of intuition attributed to expert detectives — a 
 faculty that is known to have belonged to more than one 
 dreamer, and is one of the mysteries in the nature of 
 J. J. Rousseau ; and, by the way, like Rousseau's, his hand- 
 
 S 
 
258 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 writing was clear, angular, and unimpassioned, and not 
 less uniform and legible than printing — as if the medium 
 of conveying so noble a thing as thought ought to be 
 carefully, symmetrically, and decorously constructed, let 
 all other material things be as neglectfully and scornfully 
 dealt with as may be. 
 
 This is a long proemium to the description of his 
 characteristics as a book-hunter ; but these can be briefly 
 told. Not for him were the common enjoyments and 
 excitements of the pursuit. He cared not to add volume 
 unto volume, and heap up the relics of the printing-press. 
 All the external niceties about pet editions, peculiarities 
 of binding or of printing, rarity itself, were no more to 
 him than to the Arab or the Hottentot. His pursuit 
 indeed was like that of the savage who seeks but to 
 appease the hunger of the moment. If he catch a prey 
 just sufficient for his desires it is well ; yet he will not 
 hesitate to bring down the elk or the buffalo, and sati- 
 ating himself with the choicer delicacies, abandon the 
 bulk of the carcase to the wolves or the vultures. So 
 of Papaverius. If his intellectual appetite were craving 
 after some passage in the CEdipus, or in the Medeia, or 
 in Plato's Republic, he would be quite contented with 
 the most tattered and valueless fragment of the volume, if 
 it contained what he wanted ; but, on the other hand, he 
 would not hesitate to seize upon your tall copy in russia 
 gilt and tooled. Nor would the exemption of an editio' 
 princeps from everyday sordid work restrain his sacri- 
 legious hands. If it should contain the thing he desires 
 to see, what is to hinder him from wrenching out the 
 twentieth volume of your EncyclopMie Mithodique, or 
 Ersch and Gruber, leaving a vacancy like an extracted 
 front tooth, and carrying it off to his den of Cacus ? If 
 you should mention the matter to any vulgar-mannered 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 259 
 
 acquaintance given to the unhallowed practice of jeering, 
 he would probably touch his nose with his extended 
 palm and say, " Don't you wish you may get it ? " True, 
 the world at large has gained a brilliant essay on 
 Euripides or Plato ; but what is that to the rightful 
 owner of the lost sheep ? 
 
 The learned world may very fairly be divided into 
 those who return the books borrowed by them, and those 
 who do not. Papaverius belonged decidedly to the 
 latter order. A friend addicted to the marvellous boasts 
 that, under the pressure of a call by a public library to 
 replace a mutilated book with a new copy, which would 
 have cost ;^ 30, he recovered a volume from Papaverius, 
 through the agency of a person specially bribed and 
 authorised to take any measures, insolence and violence 
 excepted ; but the power of extraction that must have 
 been employed in the process excites very painful 
 reflections. Some legend, too, there is of a book-creditor 
 having forced his way into the Cacus den, and there seen 
 a sort of rubble-work inner wall of volumes, with their- 
 edges outwards, while others, bound and unbound, the- 
 plebeian sheepskin and the aristocratic russian, were- 
 squeezed into certain tubs drawn from the washing- 
 establishment of a confiding landlady. In other instances 
 the book has been recognised at large, greatly enhanced, 
 in value by a profuse edging of manuscript notes from a 
 gifted pen — a phenomenon calculated to bring into 
 practical use the speculations of the civilians about 
 pictures painted on other people's panels.* What became 
 
 * "Si quis in aliena tabula pinxerit, quidam putant, tabulam 
 picturas cedere : aliis videtur picturam (qualiscunque sit) tabulse 
 cedere : sed nobis videtur melius esse tabulam picturae cedere. 
 Ridiculum est enim picturam Apellis vel Parrhasii in accessionem 
 vilissimffi tabula cedere." — yust. ii. i, 34. 
 
 S 2 
 
26o • THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 of all his waifs and strays, it might be well not to inquire 
 too curiously. If he ran short of legitimate tabula rasa 
 to write on, do you think he would hesitate to tear out 
 the most convenient leaves of any broad-margined book, 
 whether it belonged to himself or another. Nay, it is 
 said he once gave in copy written on the edges of a 
 tall octavo Somnium Scipionis ; and as he did not 
 obliterate the original matter, the printer was rather 
 puzzled, and made a funny jumble between the letter- 
 press Latin and the manuscript English. All these 
 things were the types of an intellectual vitality which 
 despised and thrust aside all that was gross or material 
 in all that wherewith it came in contact. Surely never 
 did the austerities of monk or anchorite so entirely cast 
 all these away as his peculiar nature removed them from 
 him. It may be questioned if he ever knew what it was 
 " to eat a good dinner," or could even comprehend the 
 nature of such a felicity. Yet in all the sensuous nerves 
 which connect as it were the body with the ideal, he was 
 painfully susceptible. Hence a false quantity or a wrong 
 note in music was agony to him ; and it is remembered 
 with what ludicrous solemnity he apostrophised his 
 unhappy fate as one over whom a cloud of the darkest 
 despair had just been drawn — a peacock had come to live 
 within hearing distance from him, and not only the 
 terrific yells of the accursed biped, pierced him to the 
 soul, but the continued terror of their recurrence kept 
 his nerves in agonising tension during the intervals of 
 silence. 
 
 Peace be with his gentle and kindly spirit, now for 
 some time separated from its grotesque and humble 
 tenement of clay. It is both right and pleasant to say 
 that the characteristics here spoken of were not those of 
 his latter days. In these he was tended by affectionate 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 26 1 
 
 hands ; and I have always thought it a wonderful instance 
 of the power of domestic care and management that, 
 through the ministrations of a devoted offspring, this 
 strange being was so cared for that those who came in 
 contact with him then, and then only, might have ad- 
 mired him as the patriarchal head of an agreeable and 
 elegant household. 
 
262 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 CARLYLE AND DE QUINCEY. 
 
 1 INTRODUCE this memorable record of an early friend- 
 ship with a few words touching briefly on later days. 
 
 Doubtless, De Quincey's adverse review of "Wilhelm 
 Meister " was keenly felt by Carlyle and for many a day 
 resented. Perhaps we have there the key to various 
 -acrimonious observations which came to light in the 
 " Reminiscences." 
 
 But, referring again to that touching interview with 
 Carlyle (which I have detailed in " Days and Nights "), 
 when I delivered De Quincey's " message from the 
 grave," I can testify that with both " it was light at 
 eventide." 
 
 " Craigenputloch, 
 
 "December 1 1, 1828. 
 
 " My dear Sir, — Having the opportunity of a frank, 
 I cannot resist the temptation to send you a few lines, 
 were it only to signify that two well-wishers of yours 
 are still alive in these remote moors, and often thinking 
 of you with the old friendly feelings. My wife en- 
 courages me in this innocent purpose ; she has learned 
 lately that you were inquiring for her of some female 
 friend ; nay, even promising to visit us here — a fact of 
 the most interesting sort to both of us. I am to say, 
 therefore, that your presence at this fireside will diffuse 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 263 
 
 no ordinary gladness over all members of the house- 
 hold ; that our warmest welcome, and such solacements 
 as even the desert does not refuse, are at any time 
 and at all times in store for one we love so well. 
 Neither is this expedition so impracticable. We lie but 
 a short way out of your direct route to Westmoreland ; 
 communicate by gravelled roads with Dumfries and 
 other places in the habitable globe. Were you to 
 warn us of your approach, it might all be made easy 
 enough. And then such a treat it would be to hear 
 the sound of philosophy and literature in the hitherto 
 quite savage wolds, where since the creation of the 
 world no such music, scarcely even articulate speech 
 had been uttered or dreamed of! Come, therefore, 
 come and see us ; for we often long after you. Nay, I 
 can promise, too, that we are almost a unique sight in 
 the British Empire ; such a quantity of German period- 
 icals and mystic speculations embosomed in plain 
 Scottish peat-moor being nowhere else that I know of 
 to be met with. In idle hours we sometimes project 
 founding a sort of colony here, to be called the 
 ' Misanthropic Society ; ' the settlers all to be men of a 
 certain philosophic depth, and intensely sensible of the 
 present state of literature : each to have his own cottage, 
 encircled with roses or thistles as he might prefer ; a 
 library and pantry within and huge stack of turf-fuel 
 without ; fenced off from his neighbours by fir-woods, 
 and, when he pleased, by cast-metal railings, so that 
 each might feel himself strictly an individual, and free as a 
 son of the wilderness ; but the whole settlement to meet 
 weekly over coffee, and there unite in their Miserere, or 
 what were better, hurl forth their defiance, pity, expostu- 
 lation, over the whole universe, civil, literary, and re- 
 ligious. I reckon this place a much fitter site for such an 
 
264 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 establishment than your lake country — a region abound- 
 ing in natural beauty — but blown on by coach-horns, 
 betrodden by picturesque tourists, and otherwise exceed- 
 ingly desecrated by too frequent resort : whereas here, 
 though still in communication with the manufacturing 
 world we have a solitude altogether Druidical, grim hills 
 tenanted chiefly by the wild grouse, tarns and brooks 
 which have soaked and slumbered unmolested since the 
 deluge of Noah, and nothing to disturb you with speech, 
 except Arcturus and Orion, and the Spirit of Nature, in 
 the heaven and in the earth, as it manifests itself in 
 anger or love, and utters its inexplicable tidings, unheard 
 by the mortal ear. But the misery is the almost total 
 want of colonists ! Would you come hither and be 
 king over us ? then, indeed we had made a fair begin- 
 ning, and the ' Bog School ' might snap its fingers at the 
 ' Lake School ' itself, and hope to be one day recognised 
 of all men. But enough of this fooling. Better were it 
 to tell you in plain prose what little can be said of my 
 own welfare, and inquire in the same dialect after yours. 
 It will gratify you to learn that here, in the desert as in 
 the crowded city, I am moderately active and well ; better 
 in health, not worse ; and though active only on the 
 small scale, yet in my own opinion honestly, and to as 
 much result as has been usual with me at any time. 
 We have horses to ride on, gardens to cultivate, tight 
 walls and strong fires to defend us against winter ; books 
 to read, paper to scribble on ; and no man or thing, at 
 least in this visible earth, to make us afraid : for I reckon 
 that so securely sequestered are we, not only would no 
 Catholic rebellion, but even no new Hengist and Horsa 
 invasion, in any wise disturb our tranquillity. True, we 
 have no society ; but who has in the strict sense of that 
 word ? I have never had any worth speaking much 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 265 
 
 about since I came into this world ; in the next, it may 
 be, they will order matters better. Meanwhile, if we 
 have not the wheat in great quantity, we are nearly 
 altogether free from the chaff, which often in this matter 
 is highly annoying to weak nerves. My wife and I are 
 busy learning Spanish ; far advanced in Don Quixote 
 already. I purpose writing Mystical Reviews for some- 
 yfhdA. more than a twelvemonth to come ; have Greek to 
 read, and the whole universe to study (for I understand 
 less and less of it) ; so that here as well as elsewhere I 
 find a man may ' dree his wierd ' (serve out his earthly 
 apprenticeship) with reasonable composure, and wait 
 what the flight of years may bring him, little disap- 
 pointed (unless he is a fool) if it bring him mere nothing 
 save what he has already — a body and a soul — more 
 cunning and costly treasures, than all Golconda and 
 Potosi could purchase for him. What would the vain 
 worm, man, be at? Has he not a head to speak of 
 nothing else — a head (be it with a hat or without one) 
 full of far richer things than Windsor Palace, or the 
 Brighton Teapot added to it ? What are all Dresden 
 picture-galleries and magasins des arts et des metiers to 
 the strange painting and thrice precious workmanship 
 that goes on under the cranium of a beggar? What 
 can be added to him or taken from him by the hatred 
 or love of all men ? The grey paper or the white silk 
 paper in which the gold ingot is wrapped ; the gold 
 is inalienable ; he is the gold. But truce also to this 
 moralizing. I had a thousand things to ask concerning 
 you : your employments, purposes, sufferings and 
 pleasures. Will you not write to me? Will you not 
 come to me and tell? Believe it you are well loved 
 here, and none feels better than I what a spirit it is at 
 present eclipsed in clouds. For the present it can only 
 
266 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 be : time and chance are for all men ; that troublous 
 season will end; and one day with more joyful, not 
 deeper or truer regard I shall see you ' yourself again.' 
 Meanwhile pardon me this intrusion ; and write if you 
 have a vacant hour which you would fill with a good 
 action. Mr. Jeffrey is still anxious to know you ; has he 
 ever succeeded ? We are not to be in Edinburgh, I 
 believe, till spring ; but I will send him a letter to you 
 (with your permission) by the first conveyance. Re- 
 member me with best regards to Professor Wilson and 
 Sir W. Hamilton, neither of whom must forget me : not 
 omitting the honest Gordon, who I know will not. The 
 bearer of this letter is Henry Inglis, a young gentleman 
 of no ordinary talent and worth, in whom, as I believe, 
 es steckt gar viel. Should he call himself pray let this 
 be an introduction, for he reverences all spiritual worth, 
 and you also will learn to love him. With all friendly 
 sentiments, 
 
 " I am ever, 
 
 "My dear Sir, 
 
 "Most faithfully yours, 
 
 "T. Carlyle." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 26/ 
 
 "DE QUINCEY'S REVENGE." 
 
 A BALLAD IN THREE FITTES. 
 By delta (Dk. D. M. MOIR). 
 
 This interesting Ballad appeared in Blackwood's Magazine 
 in 1840, and is specially referred to by De Quincey in 
 a long and elaborate note on his family name. This was 
 appended to the revised edition of the " Confessions." 
 
 It is there stated that the De Quincey family which 
 split into three national divisions — English, French, and 
 American — ^was originally Norwegian. " They assumed 
 a territorial denomination from the district or village of 
 Quincey, in the province now called Normandy, trans- 
 planted themselves to England ; where, and subsequently 
 by marriage in Scotland, they ascended to the highest 
 rank in both kingdoms, and held the highest offices open 
 to a subject." 
 
 In the copious notes attached to this Ballad, Dr. Moir 
 " took the trouble of tracing their aspiring movements in 
 Scotland, through a period when Normans transferred 
 themselves from England to Scotland in considerable 
 numbers, and with great advantages." It was the first 
 collection of facts concerning the career of the family in 
 Scotland. 
 
 " Meanwhile in England they continued to flourish 
 through nine or ten generations ; took a distinguished 
 
268 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 part in one, at least, of the Crusades ; and a still more 
 perilous share in the Barons' wars under Henry III. No 
 family drank more deeply or more frequently from the 
 cup of treason, which in those days was not always a 
 very grave offence in people who having much territorial 
 influence, had also much money. But happening to 
 drink once too often, or taking too long a ' pull ' at the 
 cup, the Earls of Winchester suddenly came to grief." 
 So it came to pass, as related by Dr. Moir, that on the 
 accession of Bruce to the throne, the estates of the De 
 Quinceys, being declared forfeited, were conferred on 
 the Setons. 
 
 De Quincey humorously observes : " The omission of 
 the De, as an addition looking better at a tournament 
 than as an indorsement on a bill of exchange, began as 
 to many hundreds of English names, full three hundred 
 years ago. Many English families have disused this 
 affix from sheer indolence. As to the terminal variations 
 cy, cie, cey, those belong, as natural and inevitable ex- 
 ponents of a transitional condition, to the unsettled 
 spelling that characterised the early stages of literature 
 in all countries alike." 
 
 DE QUINCEY'S REVENGE. 
 
 a ballad in three fittes. 
 
 By Delta. 
 
 I. 
 
 De Quincey, lord ot Travernent, 
 Has from the Syrian wars return'd; 
 
 As near'd his train to his own demesne. 
 His heart within him burn'd. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 269 
 
 Yet heavy was that heart, I ween; 
 
 A cloud had o'er him pass'dj 
 And all of life, that once was green, 
 
 Had wither'd in the blast. 
 Say, had he sheath'd his trusty brand. 
 
 Intent no more to roam, 
 Only to find the Scottish strand 
 
 For him no fitting home?* 
 
 II. 
 
 Who stands at hush of eventide 
 
 Before Newbottle's sacred walls, 
 While eastward far, in arch and aisle, 
 
 Its mighty shadow falls? 
 That steel-clad knight stood at the porch. 
 
 And loud he knock'd, and long, 
 Till out from the chancel came a Frere, 
 
 For it was even-song. 
 To an alder stump his steed was tied. 
 
 And the live wind from the west 
 Stirr'd the blue scarf on his corslet side. 
 
 And the raven plumes of his crest. 
 
 III. 
 
 "Why knock'st thou here? No hostel this, 
 
 And we have mass to sayj 
 Know'st thou, that rises our vesper hymn 
 
 Duly at close of day? 
 
 * Robert de Quincey, a Northamptonshire baron, acquired the 
 manor of Travernent {vulgo, Tranent), which, in the reign of David 
 the First, had been held by Swan, the son of Thor, soon after the 
 accession of William the Lion ; and he served for some time as 
 justiciary to that monarch. At the end of the twelfth century he 
 was succeeded in his immense estates by his son, Seyer de Quincey, 
 the hero of the following ballad, who set out for Palestine in 1218, 
 where he died in the year following. 
 
270 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 And in the chantry, even now, 
 
 The choristers are met; 
 For lo ! o'er Pentland's summits blue, 
 
 The western sun hath set? 
 But if.thouretiirn'st at morning tide. 
 
 Whatever be thy behest—" 
 "Nay," said the stranger hastily, 
 
 "Delay not my request. 
 
 IV. 
 "For I have come from foreign lands. 
 
 And seen the sun of June 
 Set over the holy Jerusalem, 
 
 And its towers beneath the moon; 
 And I have stood by the sepulchre 
 
 Wherein the Lord was laid, 
 And drunk of Siloa's brook, that flows 
 
 In the cool of its own palm shade. 
 Yea! I have battled for the Cross, 
 
 'Tis the symbol on my mail — 
 But why, with idle words should I 
 
 Prolong a bootless tale? 
 
 V. 
 "The Lady Elena — woe to me 
 
 Brought the words that tale which told ! — 
 Was yesternight, by the red torchlight, 
 
 Left alone in your vaults so cold. 
 'Tis said, last night by the red torchlight 
 
 That a burial here hath been; 
 Now show me, prithee, her tomb, who stood 
 
 My heart and heaven between. 
 Alas ! alas ! that a cold damp vault 
 
 Her resting-place should be. 
 Who, singing, sate among the flowers 
 
 When I went o'er the sea." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 2/1 
 
 vr. 
 
 '"Tis nay, Sir Knight," the Frere replied, 
 
 " If thou tum'st thy steed again. 
 And hither retum'st at matin prime. 
 
 Thou shalt not knock in vain." 
 Then ire flash'd o'er that warrior's brow, 
 
 Like storm-clouds o'er the sky. 
 And, stamping, he struck his gauntlet glove 
 
 On the falchion by his thigh. 
 " Now, by our Lady's holy name, 
 
 And by the good St. John, 
 I must gaze on the features of the dead, 
 
 Though I hew my path through stone ! " 
 
 VIL 
 
 The Frere hath lighted his waxen torch, 
 
 And turn'd the grating key, 
 Down winding steps, through gloomy aisles, 
 
 The damp, dull way show'd he ; 
 And ever he stood and cross'd himself, 
 
 As the night-wind smote his ear. 
 For the very carven imageries 
 
 Spake nought but of death and fear — 
 And sable 'scutcheons flapp'd on high, 
 
 Mid that grim and ghastly shade; 
 And cofi&ns were ranged on tressels round, 
 
 And banners lowly laid. 
 
 VIIL 
 
 From aisle to aisle they pass'd the while, 
 In silence both — the one in dread — 
 
 So solemn a thing it was to be 
 With darkness and the dead ! 
 
272 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 At length the innermost vault they gain'd, 
 
 Last home of a house of fame, 
 And the Knight, looking up with earnest eye, 
 
 Read the legend round the name — 
 " Unsullied aye our honours beam" 
 
 'Neath fleur-de-lis and crescent shone ; 
 And, o'er the Dragon spouting fire, 
 
 The battle-word " Set on ! " * 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Yes ! here, good Frere — now, haste thee — ope ! " — 
 
 The holy man turn'd the key; 
 And ere ever he had an "Ave" said. 
 
 The Knight was on his knee. 
 He lifted the lawn from her waxen face. 
 
 And put back the satin soft; 
 Fled from her cheek was the glowing grace 
 
 That had thrill'd his heart so oft ! 
 The past came o'er him like a spell, 
 
 For earth could now no bliss aiford. 
 And thus, within that cheerless cell, 
 
 His bitter plaint he pour'd. 
 
 * " Intaminatis fulget honoribus^' was the proud motto of the 
 Seton family. 
 
 The original Seton arms were three crescents with a double 
 tressure, flowered and counterflowered with fleurs-de-lis. A sword 
 supporting a royal crown was afterwards given by Robert the Bruce, 
 for the bravery and loyalty of the family during the succession wars. 
 At a later period, three garbs azure were quartered with the Seton 
 arms, by George the second lord of that name. 
 
 " This lord George," saith old Sir Thomas Maitland, " tuk the 
 armes ol Buchan, quhilk ar thrfe cumming schevis, quarterlie wyth 
 his awin armes, allegeand himself to be air of the said erldome, be 
 ressoun of his gudedame." — Chronical of the Hous of Seytoun, p. 37. 
 
 The crest was a green dragon spouting fire surmounting a ducal 
 coronet, with the words over it, " Set on." The supporters were two 
 foxes collared and chains. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 273 
 
 X. 
 
 " Oh ! Elena, I little dreamt, 
 
 When I sailed o'er the sea. 
 That, coming back, our meeting next 
 
 In a charnel-vault should be ! 
 I left thee in thy virgin pride, 
 
 A living flower of beauty rare. 
 And now I see thee at my side 
 
 What words may not declare ! 
 Oh ! I have met thee on the waves. 
 
 On the field have braved thee, Death, 
 But ne'er before so sank my heart 
 
 Thy withering scowl beneath! 
 
 XI. 
 
 " How different was the time, alas ! 
 
 When, in the sunny noon of love, 
 I trysted with thee in the stag coppice. 
 
 In the centre of the grove ! 
 How different was the time, alas I 
 
 When, from the tower of high Falsyde,* 
 We mark'd along the Bay of Forth 
 
 The streamer'd galleys glide! 
 How different was the time, alas ! 
 
 When the gay gold ring I gave. 
 And thou didst say, when far away, 
 
 I will bear it to my grave!" 
 
 * Sir Robert Sibbald, in his History of Fife, quotes a charter by 
 the Earl of Winchester to Adame de Seton, 1246, " De Maritagio 
 hercedis Alani de Fawside," from which, as well as from some in- 
 cidental passages in Maitland's " History of, the Hous of Seytoun," 
 it is evident that Falside Castle was a heritage of the younger 
 branches of the Seton family. It was first acquired by them from 
 intermarriage with the De Quinceys. 
 
 The date of Falsyde Castle is uncertain. It was burned by the 
 
 T 
 
274 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Knight turn'd back the satin fold 
 
 Where her hand lay by her side, 
 And there, on her slender finger cold. 
 
 He the token ring espied ! 
 "Now know I thou wert true to me. 
 
 Ah ! false thou couldst not prove ; 
 Vain was the hate that strove to mate 
 
 Thy heart with a stranger love." 
 And then he kiss'd her clay-cold cheek, 
 
 And then he kiss'd his sword. 
 "By this," he said, "sweet injured maid, 
 
 Thy doom shall be deplored ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 '" Yes ! darkly some shall make remead, 
 
 And dearly some shall pay 
 For griefs that broke thy faithful heart, 
 
 When I was far away!" 
 
 English under the Duke of Somerset, 1547, the day following the 
 fatal battle of Pinkie. The strength of the mason-work, however — 
 the tower being arched at the top of the building, as well as at the 
 first story — prevented its entire demolition. Paton, in his Diary, 
 gives a very cool description of the burning to death of its little 
 garrison, and calls it "a sorry-looking castle." In 1618, the family 
 of Fawside of that Ilk appear to have removed to a more modern 
 mansion in the immediate vicinity, which has the initials J. F., J. L., 
 above one of its windows. The dovecot of the ancient fortalice still 
 remains ; and within it is a curious place of concealment, secured by 
 an antique grated door. There is a similar hole of secrecy in the 
 staircase of the oldest part of the castle. 
 
 It is now the property of Sir George Grant Suttie of Prestongrange 
 and Balgone, having descended to him through his maternal 
 ancestors the Setons, Earls of Hyndford. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 275 
 
 " Nay ! dost thou talk of vengeance now," 
 
 Quod the Frere, "on thy bended knee?" 
 The Knight look'd wildly up in his face, 
 
 But never a word spake he. 
 *Now rise, now rise, Sir Knight!" he cried. 
 
 " Mary Mother calm thy mind ! 
 'Twas the fiat of Heaven that she should die; 
 
 To its will be thou resign'd!" 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Uprose De Quincey from his knee 
 
 In that darksome aisle and drear; 
 No word he spake, but, with hasty glove, 
 
 Brush'd oflf one starting tear ; 
 Then, as he donn'd his helm, he pluck'd 
 
 The silken scarf from its crest. 
 And upraised it first to his meeting lip. 
 
 Then hid it within his breast. 
 The scenes — the thoughts of other years 
 
 Pour'd o'er him like a lava tide; 
 Her day was done, and set her sun. 
 
 And all for him was night beside ! 
 
 The coffin lid was closed; the Frere 
 
 Preceded, with his taper wan; 
 Behind him strode the black-mail'd Knight, 
 
 A melancholy man ! 
 And oft the Monk, as he upward clomb 
 
 From the darksome place of dread, 
 Where the coffin'd clay of fair Elena lay, 
 
 Did backwards turn his head — 
 
 T 2 
 
^7^ THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Say, holy Frere, can the waves of fear 
 
 O'er thy calm, pure spirit flow; 
 Or is it the cold, through these vaults of mould, 
 
 That makes thee tremble so? 
 
 XVI. 
 
 The porch they gain'd — the Frere he closed 
 
 The gates behind the Knight. 
 Dim lay the clouds, like giant shrouds, 
 
 Over the red starlight; 
 And ever, with low, moaning sound, 
 
 The soft warm gust wail'd through the trees; 
 Calm, in slumber bound, lay all around, 
 
 And the Stream sang " Hush ! " to the Breeze. 
 The Frere put out his torch, and look'd 
 
 His high-barr'd lattice fro' ; 
 And he saw, 'mid the dusk, the mounted Knight, 
 
 Down the winding valley go. 
 
 FiTTE Second. 
 
 I. 
 
 'Twas the flush of dawn ; on the dewy lawn 
 
 Shone out the purpling day; 
 The lark on high sang down from the sky. 
 
 The thrush from the chestnut spray; 
 On the lakelet blue, the water-coot 
 
 Oafd forth with her sable young; 
 While at its edge, from reed and sedge, 
 
 The fisher-hern upsprung; 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 2^^ 
 
 In peaceful pride, by Esk's green side, 
 The shy deer stray'd through RosUn glen; 
 
 And the hill-fox to the Roman Camp* 
 Stole up from Hawthornden.t 
 
 II. 
 
 Where hurries so fast the henchman? 
 
 His steed seems froth'd with spray; 
 To Newbottle's shrine, 'mid the dawning lone. 
 
 He speeds his onward way. 
 From grey Caerbarrin's walls he came, % 
 
 By Smeaton Shaw, through Golden Wood, 
 And up thy royal way, Derstrette, § 
 
 His path he hath pursued — 
 
 * The parish of Newbottle rises from its extremities — Fordel 
 House and Newbyres Tower — till it terminates in a ridge of 
 considerable extent, termed the Roman Camp, the elevation of which 
 is 680 feet. The neighbourhood abounding in hares, the Roman 
 Camp is a favourite meeting-place of the Mid-Lothian Coursing 
 Club. From antlers found in the neighbourhood, and even at 
 Inveresk, no doubt can exist, that, at the era of our ballad, the hart 
 and hind were visitants of at least the Morth-thwaite hills. 
 
 t The building of Roslin Castle is anterior to the dawn of 
 authentic record. " Its origin," says Chalmers (" Caledonia," 
 vol. ii. p. 571), is laid in fable." According to Adam de Cardonnel 
 (" Picturesque Antiquities "), William de Sancto Claro, son of 
 Waldernus Compte de St Clare, who came to England with William 
 the Conqueror, obtained from King Malcom Canmore a grant of 
 the lands and barony of Roslin. Hawthornden and Roslin are 
 associated with many bright names in literature — Drummond, Ben 
 Jonson, Ramsay, Macneil, Scott, Wilson, and Wordsworth. 
 
 % Chalmers traces back the name "Caerbairm " to the time of the 
 ancient Britons, and instances the modern one, " Carderry," to show 
 how English adjuncts have been engrafted on British roots. 
 
 Every reader of Scottish history will remember that it was on the 
 rising ground above the fortalice of Carberry, that Mary and 
 Bothwell awaited the approach of the confederate lords ; and that 
 there they were parted, never to meet again. 
 
 § During the Scoto-Saxon period, the king's highways are often 
 
278 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Until, upon its flowery lawn, 
 By murmuring Esk's enamour'd side, 
 
 The Abbey's grand and massive walls 
 Were 'mid its groves espied.* 
 
 mentioned in chartularies, as local boundaries. In that of New- 
 bottle we find reference made to a regia via, leading from the 
 village of Ford to the Abbey, in a charter of Hugh Riddel, in the 
 time of Alexander III. (chart. 22.) The king's highway from the 
 same Abbey to Edinburgh in 1252, is also there mentioned (16) ; 
 andiGervaise,the abbot, in his charter {lb. 163), alludes to a certain 
 road called Derstrette, near Golden, in the district of Inveresk. 
 Near the same locality there is now a place called D'Arcy, which I 
 have little doubt is a corruption of the ancient appellation. 
 
 * Newbottle Abbey was beautifully situated on the banks of the 
 South Esk, nearly on the same site as the modem mansion of the 
 Marquis of Lothian, who is a descendant of the last abbot. It was 
 founded by that " sore saint for the crown," King David I., in the 
 year 1 140. " The monks," says Bishop Keith, " were brought from 
 Melrose, together with their abbot, Radulphus. Patrick Madort, 
 a learned divine, who is mentioned from the year 1462 until 1470^ 
 recovered a great number of original writs and charters belonging 
 to this place, which were transcribed into a chartulary, which is now 
 in the Advocates' Library." — Religious Houses, p. 417. Ed. 1824. 
 
 The only relics of antiquity now about the place, are the remains 
 of the stone inclosure which surrounded the Abbey, still called 
 Monkland Wall — a striking and venerable gateway, surmounted by 
 its time-worn lions ; a solemn line of yew-trees ; and a doorway, 
 amid the lawn to the east, said to be the entrance of a subterranean 
 passage to the old Abbey. 
 
 Many of the trees in the park are beautiful and majestic, 
 especially some of the planes and elms ; and a beech, in the 
 neighbourhood of the house, measures twenty-two feet in circum- 
 ference, at a yard from the ground. It contains nine hundred cubic 
 feet of wood, and its branches cover a circle of thirty-three feet 
 diameter. 
 
 The remains of monastic architecture now seen at Newbottle are 
 said to have been brought by the late Marquis from the ruins at 
 Mount Teviot. They are beautiful and interesting. 
 
 We should also state, in referring to the antiquities of the place. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 279 
 
 III. 
 
 "Awake!" he cries, as loudly he knocks. 
 
 "Ho! arise, and haste with me; 
 For soon, alas, Caerbarrin's lord 
 
 Among the dead must be ! " 
 Then forth outspake the abbot grey 
 
 From his couch, as he arose — 
 "Alack! thou bring'st us evil news, 
 
 For thy lord he was of those 
 Who dower'd our church with goodly lands, 
 
 And his sword hath ever been, 
 For Scotland's glory and for ours, 
 
 At the call, unsheath'd and keen. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "But the best are aye the first to die, 
 
 This sinful earth is not their place; 
 Sure is the passage of the good — 
 
 Mary Mother yield them grace ! 
 Then rest thee in our porter's keep. 
 
 While our brother Francis will repair 
 To the house of woe,, and soothe the soul 
 
 Of the dying man with prayer ! " 
 
 that a little, below the Abbey there is a venerable bridge over the 
 Esk, rudely built, and overspread with ivy, which has long survived 
 all. accounts of its age and founder. 
 
 The present parish of Newbottle consists of the ancient parish of 
 Maistertbn, and the Abbey parish. During the Scoto-Saxon 
 periodj'the patronage of Maisterton was possessed by the lord of 
 ■ the' manor. Near the end of the thirteenth century this belonged 
 to Robert de Rdssine, knight, whose daughters, Mariot and Ada, 
 resigned it to the Monks of Newbottle, with two-thirds of their 
 estates. 
 
280 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 The henchman sate him down to rest, 
 And wiped the toil-drops from his brow; 
 
 While in hurry and haste, on shrieving quest, 
 The Frere was boune to ride and go. 
 
 Through the green woodlands spurr'd the monk- 
 
 The morning sun was shining bright, 
 Upon his bosom lay the Book,* 
 
 Under his cloak of white ; 
 Before him, in the pleasant prime. 
 
 The willow'd stream meandering floVd — 
 From wildflowers by the pathway side 
 
 The gallant heathcock crow'd; 
 Glisten'd the dew on the harebells blue — 
 
 And, as the west wind murmufd by, 
 From yellow broom stole forth perfume. 
 
 As from gardens of Araby. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Now lay his road by beechen groves — 
 
 Now by daisied pastures green, 
 And now, from the vista'd mountain road. 
 
 The shores of Fife were seen ; — 
 
 * " Much he marvell'd a knight of pride 
 
 Like a book-bosom'd priest should ride." 
 
 So says Sir Walter Scott (Lay, canto iii. stanza 8), and, in 
 annotation, quotes from a MS. Account of Parish of Ewes, apud 
 Macfarlane's MSS. : — " At Unthank, two miles north-east from the 
 church (of Ewes), there are the ruins of a chapel for Divine service 
 in time of Popery. There is a tradition that friars were wont to 
 come from Melrose or Jedburgh, to baptize and marr>' in this 
 parish; and, from being in use to carry the mass-book in their 
 bosoms, they were called by the inhabitants " Book a bosontes." 
 
Ills FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 28 1 
 
 And now Dalcaeth behind him lay;* 
 
 And now its castle, whence the Graeme 
 Sent forth his clump of Border spears, 
 
 The vaunting Gael to tame; 
 Now by coppice and corn he urged his steed, 
 
 Now by dingle wild and by dell, 
 Where down by Cousland's limestone rocks 
 
 The living waters well. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Then he came to a clump of oak-trees hoar, 
 
 Half over the steep road hung. 
 When up at once to his bridle rein 
 
 The arm of a warrior sprung; 
 
 • Dalcaeth, in the Celtic, means the narrow dale. ( Vide Richard 
 and Owen's Dictionary, in voce Caeth.) Dalkeith, as a parish, does 
 not appear in the ancient Taxatio. Indeed, as such, it did not then 
 exist ; but as the manor of Dalkeith, as well as that of Abercorn, 
 was granted by David I. to William de Grahame, it is easily to be 
 supposed, that, being an opulent family, they had a chapel to their 
 court. " No memorial remains of the Grahames, unless the fading 
 traditions of the place, and two curious but wasted tombstones, 
 which lie within the circuit of the old church. They represent 
 knights in chain armour, lying cross-legged upon their monuments, 
 like those ancient and curious figures on the tombs in the Temple 
 Church, London." — Provincial Antiquities of Scotland. From 
 Robertson's "Index," 40 — 44; and from the "Douglas Peerage," 489, 
 we find, that in the reign of David II., John de Grahame of Dalkeith 
 resigned the manor, with its pertinents, to William Douglas, the 
 heir of Sir James Douglas of Lothian, in marriage with his daughter 
 Margaret. Dalcaeth is first written Dalkeith in a charter of Robert 
 the Bruce. It is proper to mention, however, that Froissart, who 
 himself visited the Earl of Douglas at his castle of Dalkeith, has the 
 following passage, in mentioning the single combat between the 
 Earl and Sir Henry Percy, at the barriers of Newcastle. The 
 former having, by force of arms, won the banner of the latter, is thus 
 made to say : — " I shall bear this token of your prowess into 
 
282 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 With sudden jerk, the startled steed 
 
 Swerved aside with bristling mane : 
 "Now halt thee, Frere, and rest thee here, 
 
 Till I hither return again. 
 I know thine errand — dismount, dismount — 
 
 That errand for thee I'll do; 
 But, if thou stirrest till I return. 
 
 Such rashness thou shalt rue ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " Then doff to me thy mantle white, 
 
 And eke thy hood of black ; * 
 And crouch thee amid these brackens green. 
 
 To the left, till I come back." 
 "Oh! bethink thee. Knight," the good Frere said, 
 
 "I should kneel by his couch and pray; 
 How awful it is for the soul of man 
 
 Unanneal'd to pass away! 
 
 Scotland, and shall set it high on my castle of Dalkeith, (D'Alquest) 
 that it may be seen far oS.'^—Froissart, Earners' reprint, 1812. 
 Vol. ii. p. 393. 
 
 * The monks of Newbottle were of the Cistertian order. " They 
 were called Monachi Albi^'' says Cardonnel, "to distinguish them 
 from the Benedictines, whose habit was entirely black ; whereas the 
 Cistertians wore a black cowl and scapular, and all their other 
 clothes were white. They had the name of Cistertians, from their 
 chief house and monasteries, Cistertium, in Burgundy; and 
 Bernardines, from St. Bernard, who, with a number of his followers, 
 retired to the monastery, and was afterwards called Abbot of 
 C\w[y2Xx.P— Picturesque Antiquities, Part^ i., pp. 12, 13 ; and 
 Keith's Scottish Bishops, p. 415. 
 
 There were thirteen monasteries of the Cistertian order in Scot- 
 land, among which were Melrose, Dundrennan, Culross, Sweetheart, 
 and Glenluce. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 283 
 
 How awful it is, with sins unshrived, 
 
 To pass from the bed of pain ! 
 Caerbarrin's chief may a dead man be, 
 
 Ere thou comest hither again ! " 
 
 IX. 
 
 He must needs obey, he durst not say nay, 
 
 That monk to the warrior stern; 
 His corslet unlaced, and his helm unbraced, 
 
 Down rattled among the fern; 
 And he hath mounted the Frere's good steed, 
 
 Clad in mantle and cowl he rode. 
 Till 'neath him, on its own green knoll, 
 
 Caerbarrin's turrets glow'd.* 
 
 * The ancient history of the lands of Carberry is lost in obscurity. 
 The lower rooms of the square tower are strongly arched, and 
 evidently of great age. At the time of the Duke of Somerset's 
 expedition it was the property of Mr. Hugh Rigg, the king's ad^ 
 vocate, who is more than once mentioned in the histories of Knox 
 and Pitscottie. We observe also, from the Inquisitiones Spedales, 
 that the property was conveyed to several subsequent generations 
 of the same family — from whom it passed to the Dicksons — of 
 whom we find that, during the Rebellion of 1745, Sir Robert was 
 chief bailie of Musselburgh. 
 
 The assumption of the lords of this wealthy district having been 
 donators to the Abbey of Newbottle, however unwarranted by 
 record, is far from unlikely, the practice having been a common one 
 with the wealthy for very weighty reasons. 
 
 In 1 1 84, as we learn from the Chartulary of Newbottle (71), 
 Robert de Quincey, the father of our hero, granted to the monks of 
 the Abbey the lands of Preston, where they formed an agricultural 
 establishment — hence called Preston Grange — with common of 
 pasture for ten sheep, and a sufficiency of oxen to cultivate their 
 grange. Seyer de Quincey confirmed to the monks all these 
 privileges gifted by his father, by which confirmation we learn that 
 their lands of Preston were bounded on the west by the rivulet of 
 Pinkie, in his manor of Travernent. 
 
 A curious fact is also ascertained by these charters of the De 
 
284 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Caerbarrin ! famed by History's pen 
 
 In Scotland's later day, 
 When Bothwell fled, and Mary was led 
 
 In weeping beauty away. 
 
 Quinceys, which is the date at which coals were first worked in 
 Scotland ; and, in contradiction to the pretensions of Fifeshire, this 
 appears to have taken place on this spot. The charter of Robert 
 grants to the monks the right of digging peats and of cutting wood 
 for fuel ; whereas, in that of his son Seyer, we find the addition of 
 carbonarium et quarraritim^'' with free access to, and recess from 
 the same by the sea. 
 
 "This charter" (that of Seyer), says Chalmers in his erudite 
 " Caledonia," vol. ii. p. 486, " must necessarily have been granted 
 between the years 1202 and 12 18, as it is witnessed by William, who 
 became Bishop of St. Andrew's in 1202, and was granted by Seyer 
 de Quincey, who set out for the Holy Land in 1218, where he died 
 in the subsequent year." 
 
 From Keith's "Scottish Bishops," p. 15, we learn that William 
 Malvoisine was translated from the see of Glasgow to that of St. 
 Andrew's in 1202. It is also added, on the authority of the " Chart, 
 of Dunfermline," that he was " contemporary with Pope Honorius 
 and Sayerus de Quincey." 
 
 In connection with the same family, we also find from the 
 Chartulary of Newbottle, that Elena, the youngest daughter of 
 Roger de Quincey, the Constable of Scotland, married Alan la 
 Zouche, an English baron, and that in the division of his great 
 estates among his three daughters, the barony of Heriot fell to her 
 share ; and that, in her great liberality, she granted to the monks 
 of Newbottle the church of " Heryeth," with the tithes and other 
 rights. (Chart. 270.) 
 
 The lands themselves of Heryeth were afterwards acquired by the 
 monks ; but whether from the liberality of Elena, or from her son 
 La Zouche, who lost his estates in the succession wars, does not 
 appear. 
 
 Such transfers of property to rehgious houses were of common 
 occurrence. We have already alluded to the cession of Maisterton, 
 by the daughters of Sir Robert de Rossine — Mariot, who married 
 Neil de Carrick, and Ada, the wife of Gilbert de Ayton — in 1320 ; 
 and from the Chartulary of Newbottle we learn, that the monks had 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 285 
 
 The warder hail'd him from the keep, 
 
 As through the forest of oak he hied, 
 Now down the path, by the winding strath. 
 
 That leads from Chalkyside. 
 " Speed, speed thee ! " cried the porter old, 
 
 As the portals wide he threw ; 
 " Speed — speed thee ! " cried the sentinel, 
 
 The court as he pass'd through ; 
 And " Speed thee ! " echo'd the seneschal. 
 
 As he show'd the way before, — • 
 "For much I fear, most holy Frere, 
 
 That the struggle shall soon be o'er." 
 
 FiTTE Third. 
 
 Bright on Caerbarrin shines the sun. 
 
 But all within is woe and gloom ; 
 For there Sir Malcolm bends in death — 
 
 Before him yawns the tomb ! 
 Unfolded were the chamber doors. 
 
 Where moan'd he, stretch'd in prone decay; 
 And his rattling breath spake of coming death. 
 
 As life's sands ebb'd away; 
 
 various lands in Clydesdale, in order to have easy access to which 
 they obtained, from various proprietors in Mid and West Lothian, 
 special grants of free passage to these distant granges. (Chart. 
 218 to 227, and 240.) 
 
 In conclusion we may add, as showing the extensive possessions 
 at this early period of the De Quincey family, that Roger de 
 Quincey, Earl of Winton, gave also to the canons of Dryburgh a 
 toil " in villa de Hadintu7ie." (Chart. Dryb. ic6.) 
 
286 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 But, when the mantled Monk he saw, 
 On his arm he strove to rise, 
 
 And the light, that erst was waning fast, 
 Flash'd back to his sunken eyes. 
 
 II. 
 
 "Welcome! holy Father," he said. 
 
 In accents fond, but low apd weak — 
 " I would pour my sins in thy pitying ear, 
 
 And absolution seek ; 
 For I, have been a sinful man, 
 
 And repent me of my sin ; 
 Yet, as pass the hopes of life away. 
 
 The terrors of death begin ; 
 But chiefly would I tell to thee 
 
 My crime of the blackest dye, 
 Which a sea of tears might scarce wash out. 
 
 Though I could weep it dry! 
 
 III. 
 
 "A. gentle ladye my kinsman loved, 
 
 And before, he cross'd the sea. 
 To combat afar with the Saracen, 
 
 He trust reposed in me ; 
 But a demon held my soul in thrall. 
 
 And evil thoughts within me brew'd; 
 So, instead of nursing her love for him. 
 
 Her hand for myself I woo'd. 
 I threw forth doubts, that only were 
 
 The coinage of my brain ; 
 I praised her high fidelity, 
 
 Yet mourn'd that her love was vain ! " 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 28/ 
 
 IV. 
 
 Upstarted the Frere ; — " Ah, holy man, 
 
 Yet the worst I have not told; 
 In me — though sprung from noblest blood'! — 
 
 A perjured wretch behold — 
 For my love that ladye no love return'd, 
 
 Although, with hellish sleight. 
 We forged a cartel, whose purport show'd 
 
 That De Quincey had fallen in fight. 
 Yes ! my suit that lofty ladye scorn' d — 
 
 More distant she look'd and cold, 
 And for my love no love return'd — 
 
 Though I woo'd her with gifts arid gold ! " 
 
 V. 
 
 Uprose the Frere; — "Nay, sit thee down; 
 
 Not mine was the guilt alone : 
 Father Francis was the clerke thereof^ 
 
 And his Abbey is your own! 
 To fair Elena's hand that scroll he bore, 
 
 Then she folded her palms and sighed; 
 And she said, 'Since true he has died to me, 
 
 I will be no other's bride!' 
 Still woo'd I her in her mourning weeds. 
 
 Till she show'd a poinard bare. 
 And wildly voVd — if again I vex'd. 
 
 Her heart — to plunge it there ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 " Day after day, ray after ray, 
 
 She waned like an autumn sun, 
 When droop the flowers, 'mid yellow bowers, 
 
 And the waters wailing run ; — 
 
288 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Day after day, like a broken rosebud, 
 
 She wither'd and she waned, 
 Till, of her beauty and wonted bloom, 
 
 But feeble trace remain'd : — 
 Then seem'd she, like some saintly form, 
 
 Too pure for the gazer's eye. 
 Melting away, from our earthly day, 
 
 To her element — the sky! 
 
 VIL 
 
 "She died — and then I felt remorse — 
 
 But how could I atone ? 
 And I shook, when, by her breathless corse, 
 
 In silence I stood alone : — 
 Yes ! when I saw my victim lie. 
 
 Untimely, in her swathing shroud. 
 The weight of my burden'd conscience hung 
 
 Upon me like a cloud ! 
 There was no light — and all was night. 
 
 And storm, and darkness drear; 
 By day 'twas joyless, and my sleep 
 
 Was haunted by forms of fear ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 "Lonely I stray'd, until, dismay'd, 
 
 I sought the feast, where mirth was none, 
 Only to find that man is mind 
 
 And form and features dust alone. 
 Yes — of my kinsman oft I dreamt — 
 
 Of his woe, and his vengeance dire. 
 Till yesternight he cross'd my sight, 
 
 Like a demon in his ire. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 289 
 
 I had not heard of his home return — 
 
 Like a spectre there he stood — 
 Appall'd I sank, and his falchion drank 
 
 Deeply my forfeit blood. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " Oh ! grant remission of my sins, 
 
 A contrite, humbled man I die!" 
 Ere yet the words were out, the monk 
 
 Beheld his glazing eye; 
 And rising away from the couch, he said — 
 
 "May Heaven forgive my vow!" 
 With horror thrill'd his yielding frame. 
 
 And he smote his bursting brow: 
 Then pass'd he from the chamber forth, 
 
 And in silence from the gate, 
 And off to the south, through the steep hill pass, 
 
 On his steed he journey'd straight. 
 
 X. 
 
 A weight of woe is at his heart, 
 
 Despair's grey cloud is on his brow, 
 For hope and fear both disappear 
 
 In that absorbing now I 
 The world is one vast wilderness. 
 
 Vain all its pomp, its honours vain; 
 De Quincey sigh'd, and onwards pass'd 
 
 Slowly with slacken'd rein; 
 Thus wound he down through Cousland glen, 
 
 O'erhung with willows grey. 
 Until he came to the brackens green 
 
 Wherein Father Francis lay. 
 
 U 
 
290 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 XL 
 
 " Ho ! Frere, arise ! Thy cloak and cowl 
 
 Have done their ofifice meet," 
 Father Francis sprang from his lurking-place, 
 
 And stood at the warrior's feet. 
 "Now tell me," cried De Quincey, fierce, 
 
 "For thou art learn'd in lore, 
 What the meaning of this riddle is 
 
 That a bird unto me bore — 
 A lady in her chamber moum'd, 
 
 Her true knight he was abroad, 
 Fighting afar with the Saracen, 
 
 Under the Cross of God ! 
 
 XH. 
 
 "A false Friend, and a falser Frere, 
 
 Combined to shake her faith; 
 They forged — ah, wherefore dost thou fear? 
 
 Base caitiff, take thy death!" 
 The knight he struck him to the heart; 
 
 Through the branches with a crash 
 Down reel'd the corse, and in the swamp 
 
 Sank with a sullen dash.* 
 
 * Cousland-dean, a ravine of considerable depth, which com- 
 mences where the highway from Dalkeith branches off towards 
 Pathhead on the right, and towards Inveresk on the left, although 
 now partially drained, shows every indication of having been in the 
 olden time a wide and extensive morass ; and, at its narrowest 
 points, is still spanned by two bridges, one of considerable antiquity. 
 Indeed, the traces of the water- course are still evident from behind 
 Chalkyside, on the west, running eastwards along the hollow, mid- 
 way between Elphinstone Tower and Cousland Park, where it still 
 assumes the form of a rivulet. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 29 1 
 
 "Thus perish all, who would enthrall 
 
 The guileless and the true; 
 Yet on head of mine no more shall shine 
 
 The sun from his path of blue. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "No more on me shall pleasure smile — 
 
 A heartless, hopeless man; 
 The tempest's clouds of misery 
 
 Have darken'd for aye my span. 
 Farewell — farewell ! my native land, 
 
 Hill, valley, stream, and strath; 
 And thou, who held my heart's command. 
 
 And ye who cross'd my path. 
 Blow, blow, ye winds ! in fury blow, 
 
 And waft us from this baleful shore; 
 Rise, rise, ye billows, and bear us along, 
 
 Who hither return no more ! " * 
 
 * In the grants made by Seyer de Quincey to the Abbey of New- 
 bottle, mention is made of " his baronies of Preston and Tranent, 
 bounded on the west by the rivulet of Pinkie." We find also, that 
 Falsyde and Ephingston were in his possession ; and he is elsewhere 
 styled Earl of Wyntoun (" Caledonia," vol. ii. 486, note 6), a proof that 
 the barony of that name formed also a part of his immense posses- 
 sions. It is not a little curious, therefore, that a charter of King 
 WiUiam, the brother of Malcolm, surnamed the Maiden, should be 
 still extant, wherein, in the thirteenth year of that monarch's reign, 
 he vazkes confirmation to Philip de Seytune of the lands of Seytouner 
 Wintoun, and Winchelburgh {nunc Winchburgh), " quhilk," as Sir 
 Richard Maitland observes (" Historic," p. 17), "'was auld heretage 
 of befor, as the said charter testifies." 
 
 "Willielmus, Dei gra. rex Scotorum, &c. Sciatis presentis et 
 futuri, me concessisse, et hac carta mea confirmasse, PhiUipo de 
 Seytune, terram qucB fuit patris suij scilicet, Seytune, et Wintune, 
 et Winchilburgh, tenendam sibi et haeredibus suis de me et 
 haeredibus meis, in faedo et hsereditate," &a 
 
 Philip de Seytune was succeeded, on his death, by his son 
 
 U 2 
 
292 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 Alexander ; and, by another singular preservation, we have, in the 
 forty-sixth year of the same king, another royal charter of infeftment 
 of the same lands. It is nearly in the same words ; and, strange to 
 say, two of the witnesses to it are Robert de Quincey and Henry de 
 Quincey. Both of these charters are printed in Dr. M'Kenzie's 
 " Lives of Scottish Writers." They have also been transcribed by 
 the author, or rather compiler of the " Diplomata Scotiae," which 
 transcripts are stiU preserved, being now, or lately, in the possession 
 of Mr. Dillon, a member of the Maitland Club. 
 
 In the succession wars, the De Quincey family took side with 
 Baliol, and the Setons with Bruce. Sir Christopher, or Chrystal 
 Seton saved the life of that great man at the disastrous battle of 
 Methven ; and afterwards married his sister. On the accession of 
 Bruce to the throne, the estates of the De Quinceys, being declared 
 forfeited, were conferred on the Setons ; and in Sir Richard 
 Maitland's Chronicle we find, that " the said King Robert gave to 
 the said Alexander (Seton) the barony of Tranent, with the 
 tenendury thairof for the tyme, viz. Falsyde mylis and Elphinstoune, 
 as the charteris testifiis, geven thairupoun." The "landis of 
 Dundas and Cragye"were also bestowed upon him "for service, 
 done by his father and himself, with the landes and barony of 
 Barnis, aboue Hadingtoun, with dyuers uther landis, quhilk I emit 
 for schortnes." (Glasgow reprint, 1829, p. 21.) 
 
 For centuries the name of De Quincey hath perished from out of 
 the rich and extensive district which owned its sway ; and, in con- 
 templating the destinies of this once great family, how apposite is 
 the exclamation of Claudian — 
 
 " ToUuntur in altum 
 Ut lapsu graviore ruant ! " 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. ,293 
 
 DE QUINCEY 
 
 ON 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 
 
 The origin and history of this profoundly interesting 
 essay, which does not appear in any British edition of 
 the author's " collected works," will be explained by an 
 extract from the Prefatory Note attached to a volume * 
 which I published in 1890, to which this essay was 
 prefixed : — 
 
 " Forty-three years ago, while engaged in the editor- 
 ship of the new series of The Instructor — my father's 
 weekly magazine — I had frequent conversations with 
 Thomas de Quincey, on questions relating to the future 
 state. 
 
 " He reviewed, amidst other problems, of the soul, our 
 dim knowledge of that momentous question — the dura- 
 tion of future punishment, to which the yearning human 
 spirit ever turns with awe. He dwelt on the great 
 mysteries surrounding us, which the children of men 
 must be content now to ' see through a glass, darkly ; ' 
 
 * The Wider Hope : Essays and Strictures on the Doctrine 
 and Literature of Future Punishment, by Numerous Writers, Lay 
 and Clerical ; including Archdeacon Farrar, the late Dean Plumptre, 
 the late Principal TuUoch, the late Dr. Allon, the late Rev. J. 
 Baldwin Brown, Rev. William Arthur, Rev. James H. Rigg, D.D., 
 &c. 1890. 
 
294 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 and the lights and shadows of belief, which, age by age, 
 perplex and agitate anxious, storm-tossed minds — in 
 their honest endeavour to arrive at the true teaching of 
 Scripture. 
 
 "Again and again, during the discussion of these solemn 
 and moving subjects, he recurred to the interpretation of 
 the expression for eternity, until at length, one day in 
 the autumn of 1852, he said to me, ^ If T write this, dare 
 you print it ? ' With a full sense of the far-reaching 
 responsibility, I replied, 'I dare.' Accordingly the 
 essay was written, and soon afterwards published, viz. — 
 in the number of T/ie Instructor for the first week 
 of 1853. 
 
 "It attracted much attention through the English- 
 speaking world, and provoked criticism of a very mixed 
 nature, privately, and in the press. Forty-three years 
 ago, it will be remembered, the rigour of theological 
 opinion, particularly in the Modern Athens, operated 
 with a severity differing greatly from what now prevails. 
 I will only remark, that I have always felt satisfied at 
 having done what lay in my power, to promote a clear 
 understanding of the Greek words in question, by 
 enabling the distinguished author to offer to thoughtful 
 men a contribution so deserving of their attentive con- 
 sideration. 
 
 "This remarkable essay — a legacy of De Quincey's 
 keen intellect and scholarly power — has been in some 
 respects more fully appreciated in the recent literature 
 of Eschatology, than on its first appearance. I refer 
 especially to its influence on the American mind, it 
 having been for a, long time widely disseminated 
 throughout the United States." 
 
 I cannot better indicate the tone of those conversa- 
 tions with De Quincey, which led to the production of 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 295 
 
 the following essay, than by the suggestive words of 
 John Foster, which I printed as "foreword" to "The 
 Wider Hope." 
 
 "There is one question which combines with the 
 interest of speculation and curiosity an interest in- 
 comparably greater, nearer more affecting, more solemn. 
 It is the simple question — ' What shall we be ? ' How 
 soon it is spoken ; but who shall reply ? Think how pro- 
 foundly this question, this mystery concerns us ; and, in 
 comparison with this, what are to us all questions of all 
 sciences ? What to us all researches into the constitu- 
 tion and laws of material nature ? What — all investiga- 
 tions into the history of past ages ? What to us the 
 future career of events in the progress of states and 
 empires ? What to us — ^what shall become of the globe 
 itself, or all the mundane system? What we shall be, 
 we ourselves, is the matter of surpassing interest." 
 
 ON THE SUPPOSED 
 SCRIPTURAL EXPRESSION POR ETERNITY. 
 
 By THOMAS DE QUINCEY. 
 
 Forty years ago (or, in all probability, a good deal 
 more, for we have already completed thirty-seven years 
 from Waterloo, and my remembrances upon this subject 
 go back to a period lying much behind that great era), I 
 use& to be annoyed and irritated by the false interpreta- 
 tion given to the Greek word aidn, and given necessarily, 
 therefore, to the adjective aionios as its immediate 
 
296 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 derivative. It was not so much the falsehood of this 
 interpretation, as the narrowness of that falsehood, which 
 disturbed me. There was a glimmer of truth in it ; and 
 precisely that glimmer it was which led the way to a 
 general and obstinate misconception of the meaning- 
 The word is remarkably situated. It is a Scriptural word, 
 and it is also a Greek word ; from which the inevitable 
 inference is, that we must look for it only in the New 
 Testament. Upon any question arising of deep, aborigi- 
 nal, doctrinal truth, we have nothing to do with transla- 
 tions. Those are but secondary questions, archaeological 
 and critical, upon which we have a right to consult the 
 Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures known by 
 the name of the Septuagint. 
 
 Suffer me to pause at this point for the sake of 
 premising an explanation needful to the unlearned 
 reader. As the reading public and the thinking public, 
 is every year outgrowing more and more notoriously, the 
 mere /^fl:;'«ea?j public, it becomes every year more and 
 more the right of the former public to give the law 
 preferably to the latter public, upon all points which 
 concern its own separate interests. In past generations, 
 no pains were taken to make explanations that were not 
 called for by the learned public. All other readers 
 were ignored. They formed a mob, for whom no provi- 
 sion was made. And that many difficulties should be 
 left entirely unexplained for them, was superciliously 
 assumed to be^no fault at all. And yet any sensible 
 man, let him be as supercilious as he may, must on con- 
 sideration allow that amongst the crowd of unlearned or 
 half-learned readers, who have had neither time nor 
 opportunities for what is called " erudition " or learned 
 studies, there must always lurk a proportion of men 
 that, by constitution of mind, and by the bounty of 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, 297 
 
 nature, are much better fitted for thinking, originally 
 more philosophic, and are more capaciously endowed, 
 than those who are, by accident of position, more 
 learned. Such a natural superiority certainly takes 
 precedency of a merely artificial superiority ; and, there- 
 fore, it entitles those who possess it to a special considera- 
 tion. Let there be an audience gathered to any book 
 of 10,100 readers ; it might be fair in these days to 
 assume that 10,000 would be in a partial sense illiterate, 
 and the remaining 100 what would be rigorously classed 
 as "learned." Now, on such as distribution of the 
 readers, it would be a matter of certainty that the most 
 powerful intellects would lie amongst the illiterate 10,000, 
 counting, probably, to 15 to i as against those in the 
 learned minority. The inference, therefore, would be, 
 that, in all equity, the interest of the unlearned section 
 claimed a priority of attention, not merely as the more 
 numerous section, but also as, by a high probability, the 
 more philosophic. And in proportion as this unlearned 
 section widens and expands, which every year it does, in 
 that proportion the obligation and cogency of this equity 
 strengthens. An attention to the unlearned part of an 
 audience, which 1 5 years ago might have rested upon 
 pure courtesy, now rests upon a basis of absolute justice. 
 I make this preliminary explanation, in order to take 
 away the appearance of caprice from such occasional 
 pauses as I may make for the purpose of clearing up 
 obscurities or difficulties. Formerly in a case of that 
 nature, the learned reader would have told me that I 
 was not entitled to delay him by elucidations that in his 
 case must be supposed to be superfluous ; and in such a 
 remonstrance there v/ould once have been some equity. 
 The illiterate section of the readers might then be fairly 
 assumed as present only by accident ; as no abiding part 
 
298 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 of the audience; but, like the general public in the 
 gallery of the House of Commons, as present only by 
 sufferance ; and officially in any records of the house 
 whatever, utterly ignored as existences. At present, 
 half-waj' on our pilgrimage through the nineneenth 
 century, I reply to such a learned remonstrant — that it 
 gives me pain to annoy him by superfluous explanations, 
 but that, unhappily, this infliction of tedium upon him is 
 inseparable from what has now become a duty to others. 
 This being said, I now go on to inform the illiterate 
 reader, that the earliest translation of the Hebrew- 
 Scriptures ever made was into Greek. It was under- 
 taken on the encouragement of a learned prince, Ptolemy 
 Philadelphus, by an association of Jewish emigrants in 
 Alexandria. It was, as the event has shown in very 
 many instances, an advantage of a rank rising to provi- 
 dential, that such a cosmopolitan version of the Hebrew 
 sacred writings should have been made at a moment 
 when a rare concurrence of circumstances happened to 
 make it possible ; such as, for example, a king both 
 learned in his tastes and liberal in his principles of 
 religious toleration ; a language, viz., the Greek, which 
 had already become, what for many centuries it con- 
 tinued to be, a common language of communication for 
 the learned of the whole olKov/ievri (i.e., in effect of the 
 civilised world, viz., Greece, the shores of the Euxine, 
 the whole of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Carthage, and 
 all the dependencies of Carthage, finally, and above 
 all, Rome, then beginning to loom upon the western 
 horizon), together with all the dependencies of Rome, 
 and, briefly, every state and city that adorned the 
 imperial islands of the Mediterranean, or that glittered 
 like gems in that vast belt of land, roundly speaking, 
 1000 miles in average breadth, and in circuit running up 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 299 
 
 to sooo miles. 1000 multiplied into 5 times 1000, or, 
 otherwise expressed, a thousand thousand 5 times 
 repeated, or, otherwise, a million 5 times repeated, 
 briefly, a territory measuring 5,000,000 of square miles, 
 or 45 times the surface of our two British islands, such 
 was the boundless domain which this extraordinary act 
 of Ptolemy suddenly threw open to the literature and 
 spiritual revelation of a little obscure race, nestling in a 
 little angle of Asia, scarcely visible as a fraction of Syria, 
 buried in the broad shadows thrown out on one side by 
 the great and ancient settlements on the Nile, and on 
 the other by the vast empire, that for thousands of years 
 occupied the Tigris and the Euphrates. In the twinkling 
 of an eye, at a sudden summons, as it were from the 
 sounding of a trumpet, or the Oriental call by a clapping 
 of hands, gates are thrown open, which have an effect 
 corresponding in grandeur to the effect that would arise 
 from the opening of a ship canal across the Isthmus 
 of Darien, viz., the introduction to each other — face to 
 face — of two separate infinities. Such a canal would 
 suddenly lay open to each other the two great oceans of 
 our planet, the Atlantic and the Pacific ; whilst the act 
 of translating into Greek and from Hebrew, that is, 
 transferring out of a mysterious cipher as little accessible 
 as Sanscrit, and which never would be more accessible 
 through any worldly attractions of alliance with power 
 and civic grandeur, or commerce, out of this darkness 
 into the golden light of a language the most beautiful, 
 the most honoured amongst men, and the most widely 
 diffused through a thousand years to come, had the 
 immeasurable effect of throwing into the great crucible 
 of human speculation, even the beginning to ferment, to 
 boil, to overflow — that mightiest of all elements for 
 exalting the chemistry of philosophy — grand and, for 
 
300 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 the first time, adequate conceptions of the Deity. For, 
 although it is true that, until Elias should come — that is, 
 until Christianity should have applied its final revelation 
 to the completion of this great idea — we could not 
 possess it in its total effulgence, it is, however, certain 
 that an immense advance was made, a prodigious 
 usurpation across the realms of chaos, by the grand 
 illumination of the Hebrew discoveries. Too terrifically 
 austere we must presume the Hebrew idea to have been ; 
 too undeniably it had not withdrawn the veil entirely 
 which still rested upon the Divine countenance ; so 
 much is involved in the subsequent revelations of Chris- 
 tianity. But still the advance made in reading aright 
 the Divine lineaments had been enormous. God was 
 now a holy Spirit that could not tolerate impurity. He 
 was a fountain of justice, and no longer disfigured by 
 any mode of sympathy with human caprice or infirmity. 
 And, if a frown too awful still rested upon His face, 
 making the approach to Him too fearful for harmonising 
 with that perfect freedom and that childlike love which 
 God seeks in His worshippers, it was yet made evident 
 that no step for conciliating His favour did or could lie 
 through any but moral graces. 
 
 Three centuries after this great epoch of the publica- 
 tion (for such it was), secured so providentially to the 
 Hebrew theology, two learned Jews — viz., Josephus and 
 Philo Judseus — had occasion to seek a cosmopolitan 
 utterance for that burden of truth (or what they regarded 
 as truth), which oppressed the spirit within them. Once 
 again they found a deliverance from the very same 
 freezing imprisonment in an unknown language, through 
 the very same magical key, viz., the all-pervading 
 language of Greece, which carried their communications 
 to the four winds of heaven, and carried them precisely 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 3OI 
 
 amongst the class of men, viz. — the enlightened and 
 educated class — which pre-eminently, if not exclusively, 
 their wish was to reach. About one generation after 
 Christ it was, when the utter prostration, and, politically 
 speaking, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish 
 nation, threw these two learned Jews upon this recourse 
 to the Greek language, as their final resource, in a con- 
 dition otherwise of absolute hopelessness. Pretty nearly 
 three centuries before Christ it was (284 years, according 
 to common reckoning), when the first act of communica- 
 tion took place between the sealed-up literature of 
 Palestine and the Greek Catholic interpretation. Alto- 
 gether, we may say that 320 years, or somewhere about 
 ten generations of men, divided these two memorable 
 acts of intercommunication. Such a space of time 
 allows a large range of influence and of silent uncon- 
 scious operation to the vast and potent ideas that 
 brooded over this awful Hebrew literature. Too little 
 weight has been allowed to the probable contagiousness, 
 and to the preternatural shock, of such a new and 
 strange philosophy, acting upon the jaded and exhausted 
 intellect of the Grecian race. We must remember, that 
 precisely this particular range of time was that in which 
 the Greek system of philosophy, having thoroughly 
 completed their evolution, had suffered something of a 
 collapse ; and, having exhausted their creative energies, 
 began to gratify the cravings for novelty by remodellings 
 of old forms. It is remarkable, indeed, that this very 
 city of Alexandria founded and matured this new 
 principle of remodelling applied to poetry not less than 
 to philosophy and criticism. And, considering the 
 activity of this great commercial city and port, which 
 was meant to act, and did act, as a centre of communi- 
 cation between the East and the West, it is probable 
 
302 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 that a far greater effect was produced by the Greek 
 translation of the Jewish Scriptures, in the way of 
 preparing the mind of nations for the apprehension of 
 Christianity, than has ever been distinctly recognised. 
 The silent destruction of books in those centuries has 
 robbed us of all ' means for tracing innumerable revolu- 
 tions, that nevertheless, by the evidence of results, must 
 have existed. Taken, however, with or without this 
 additional result, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures 
 in their most important portions must be ranked 
 amongst what are called "providential" events. Such 
 a king — a king whose father had been a personal friend 
 of Alexander, the mighty civilising conqueror, and had 
 shared in the liberalisation connected with his vast 
 revolutionary projects for extending a higher civilisation 
 over the globe, such a king, conversing with such a 
 language, having advantages so absolutely unrivalled, 
 and again this king and this language concurring with 
 a treasure so supernatural of spiritual wisdom as the 
 subject of their ministrations, and all three concurring 
 with political events so auspicious — the founding of a 
 new and mighty metropolis in Egypt, and the silent 
 advance to supreme power amongst men of a new 
 empire, martial beyond all precedent as regarded means, 
 but not as regarded ends — working in all things towards 
 the unity of civilisation and the unity of law, so that 
 any new impulse, as, for instance, impulse of a new 
 religion, was destined to find new facilities for its own 
 propagation, resembling electric conductors, under the 
 unity of government and of law — concurrences like these 
 so many and so strange, justly impress upon this trans- 
 lation, the most memorable, because the most influential 
 of all that have ever been accomplished, a character of 
 grandeur that place it on the same level of interest 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 303 
 
 as the building of the first or second temple at 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 There is a Greek legend which openly ascribes to this 
 translation all the characters of a miracle. But, as 
 usually happens, this vulgarising form of the miraculous 
 is far less impressive than the plain history itself, unfold- 
 ing its stages with the most unpretending historical 
 fidelity. Even the Greek language, on which, as the 
 natural language of the new Greek dynasty in Egypt, 
 the duty of the translation devolved, enjoyed a double 
 advantage ; ist, as being the only language then spoken 
 upon earth that could diffuse a book over every part of 
 the civilised earth ; 2ndly, as being a language of un- 
 paralleled power and compass for expressing and re- 
 producing effectually all ideas, however alien and novel. 
 Even the city, again, in which this translation was accom- 
 plished, had a double dowry of advantages towards such a 
 labour, not only as enjoying a large literary society, and, 
 in particular, a large Jewish society, together with 
 unusual provision in the shape of libraries, on a scale 
 probably at that time unprecedented, but also as having 
 the, most extensive • machinery then known to human 
 experience for publishing, that is, for transmitting to 
 foreign capitals, all books in the readiest and the 
 cheapest fashion, by means of its prodigious shipping. 
 
 Having thus indicated to the unlearned reader the 
 particular nature of that interest which invests this 
 earliest translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, viz., that 
 in fact this translation was the earliest publication to 
 the human race of a revelation which had previously 
 been locked up in a language destined, as surely as the 
 Welsh language or the Gaelic, to eternal obscurity 
 amongst men, I go on to mention that the learned Jews 
 selected for this weighty labour happened to be in 
 
304 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 number seventy-two ; but, as the Jews systematically 
 reject fractions in such cases (whence it is that always, 
 in order to express the period of six weeks, they say 
 forty days, and not, as strictly they should, forty-two 
 days), popularly, the translators were called "the 
 seventy," for which the Latin word is septuaginta. And 
 thus in after ages the translators were usually indicated 
 as " The LXX," or, if the work and not the workmen 
 should be noticed, it was cited as The Septuagint In 
 fact this earliest of Scriptural versions, viz., into Greek 
 is by much the most famous ; or, if any other approaches 
 it in notoriety, it is the Latin translation by St. Jerome, 
 which, in this one point, enjoys even a superior impor- 
 tance, that in the church of Rome it is the authorised 
 translation. Evidently, in every church, it must be a 
 matter of primary importance to assign the particular 
 version to which that Church appeals, and by which, in 
 any controversy arising, that Church consents to be 
 governed. Now, the Jerome version fulfils this function 
 for the Romish Church ; and accordingly, in the sense 
 of being published {vulgatd), or publicly authorised by 
 that Church, it is commonly called The Vulgate. 
 
 But, in a large polemic question, unless, like the 
 Romish Church, we uphold a secondary inspiration as 
 having secured a special privileged translation from the 
 possibility of error, we cannot refuse an appeal to the 
 Hebrew text for the Old Testament, or to the Greek 
 text for the New. The word aeonios {ai,wvto<i), as purely 
 Grecian, could not connect itself with the Old Testament 
 unless it were through the Septuagint translation into 
 Greek. Now, with that version, in any case of con- 
 troversy, none of us, Protestants alike or Roman Catholics 
 have anything whatever to do. Controversially, we can 
 be concerned only with the original language of the 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 305 
 
 Scriptures, with its actual verbal expressions textually 
 produced. To be liable, therefore, to such a textual 
 citation, any Greek word must belong to the New 
 Testament. Because, though the word might happen to 
 occur in the Septuagint, yet, since that is merely a 
 translation, for any of us who occupy a controversial 
 place, that is, who are bound by the responsibilities, or 
 who claim the strict privileges of controversy, the Sep- 
 tuagint has no virtual existence. We should not be 
 at liberty to allege the Septuagint as any authority, if 
 it happened to countenance our own views : and, con- 
 sequently, we could not be called on to recognise the 
 Septuagint in any case where it should happen to be 
 against us. I make this preliminary caveat, as not 
 caring whether the word aeonios. does or does not occur 
 in the Septuagint. Either way, the reader understands 
 that I disown the authority of that version as in any 
 degree affecting myself The word which, forty years 
 ago, moved my disgust by its servile misinterpretation, 
 was a word proper to the New Testament ; and any 
 sense which it may have received from an Alexandrian 
 Jew in the third century before Christ, is no more relevant 
 to any criticism that I am now going to suggest, than is 
 the classical use of the word aeon (aiav) familiar to the 
 learned in Sophocles or Euripides. 
 
 The reason which gives to this word aeonian what I 
 do not scruple to call a dreadful importance, is the same 
 reason, and no other, which prompted the dishonesty 
 concerned in the ordinary interpretation of this word. 
 The word happened to connect itself — but that was no 
 prafctical concern of mine : me it had not biassed in the 
 one direction, nor should it have biassed any just critic 
 in the counter direction — happened, I say, to connect 
 itself with the ancient dispute upon the duration of future 
 
 X 
 
306 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 punishments. What was meant by the aeonian punish- 
 ments in the next world ? Was the proper sense of the 
 word eternal, or was it not ? I, for my part, meddled 
 not, nor upon any consideration could have been tempted 
 to meddle, with a speculation repellent alike by the horror 
 and by the hopeless mystery which invest it. Secrets of 
 the prison-house, so afflicting to contemplate steadily, and 
 so hopeless of solution, there could be no proper motive 
 for investigating, unless the investigation promised a great 
 deal more than it could ever accomplish : and my own 
 feeling as to all such problems is, that they vulgarise 
 what, left to itself, would take its natural station amongst 
 the freezing horrors that Shakespeare dismisses with so 
 potent an expression of awe, in a well-known scene of 
 Measure for Measure. I reiterate my protest against 
 being in any way decoyed into the controversy. Perhaps 
 I may have a strong opinion upon the subject. But, anti- 
 cipating the coarse discussions into which the slightest 
 entertainment of such a question would be every moment 
 approaching, once for all, out of reverential regard for 
 the dignity of human nature, I beg permission to decline 
 the controversy altogether. 
 
 But does this declinature involve any countenance to 
 a certain argument which I began by rejecting as abomi- 
 nable ? Most certainly not. That argument runs thus 
 — that the ordinary construction of the term aeonian, as 
 equivalent to everlasting, could not possibly be given up 
 when associated with penal misery, because in that case, 
 and by the very same act, the idea of eternity must be 
 abandoned as applicable to the counter-bliss of Paradise. 
 Torment and blessedness, it was argued, punishment 
 and beatification, stood upon the same level ; the same 
 word it was, the word aeo7tian, which qualified the 
 duration of either ; and, if eternity in the most rigorous 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 307 
 
 acceptation fell away from the one idea, it must equally 
 fall away from the other. Well ; be it so. But that 
 would not settle the question. It might be very painful 
 to renounce a long-cherished anticipation ; but the ne- 
 cessity of doing so could not be received as a sufficient 
 reason for adhering to the old unconditional use of the 
 word aeonian. The argument is — that we must retain 
 the old sense of eternal, because else we lose upon one 
 scale what we had gained upon the other. But what 
 then ? would be the reasonable man's retort. We are 
 not to accept or to reject a new construction (if otherwise 
 the more colourable) of the word aeonian, simply because 
 the consequences might seem such as upon the whole to 
 displease us. We may gain nothing ; for by the new 
 interpretation our loss may balance our gain ; and we 
 may prefer the old arrangement. But how monstrous is 
 all this ! We are not summoned as to a choice of two 
 different arrangements that may suit different tastes, but 
 to a grave question as to what is the sense and operation 
 of the word aeonian. Let the limitation of the word 
 disturb our previous estimate of Paradise, grant that it 
 so disturbs that estimate, not the less all such con- 
 sequences leave the dispute exactly where it was ; and 
 if a balance of reason can be found for limiting the 
 extent of the word aeonian, it will not be the less true 
 because it may happen to disturb a crotchet of our own. 
 Meantime, all this speculation, first and last, is pure 
 nonsense. Aeonian does not mean eternal; neither does 
 it mean of limited duration ; nor would the unsettling of 
 aeonian in its old use, as applied to punishment, to 
 torment, to misery, etc., carry with it any necessary 
 unsettling of the idea in its application to the beatitudes 
 of Paradise. Pause, reader ; and thou, my favoured and 
 privileged reader, that boastest thyself to be unlearned, 
 
 X 2 
 
30,8 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 pause doubly whilst I communicate my views as to this 
 remarkable word. 
 
 What is an aeon ? In the use and acceptation of the 
 Apocalypse, ;it is evidently this, viz., the duration or cycle 
 of existence which belongs to any object, not individually 
 for itself, but universally in right of its genus. Kant, for 
 instance, in a little paper which I once translated, 
 proposed and debated the question as to the age of our 
 planet the Earth. What did he mean ? Was he to be 
 understood as asking whether the earth were half a 
 million, two millions, or three, millions of years old? 
 Not at all. The probabilities certainly lean, one and all, 
 to the assignment of an antiquity greater by many 
 thousands of times than that which we have most idly 
 supposed ourselves to extract from Scripture, which 
 assuredly never meant to approach a question so pro- 
 foundly irrelevant to the great purposes of Scripture as 
 any geological speculation whatsoever. But this was not 
 within the field of Kant's inquiry. What he wished to 
 know was simply the exact stage. in the whole course of 
 her development which the Earth at present occupies. 
 Is rshe still in her infancy, for example, or in a stage 
 corresponding to middle age, or in a stage approaching 
 to superannuation? The idea of Kant presupposed a 
 certain average duration as belonging to a planet of our 
 particular system ; and supposing this known, or dis- 
 coverable, and that a certain assignable development 
 belonged to a planet so circumstanced as ours, then in 
 what particular stage of that development may we, the 
 tenants of this respectable little planet Tellus, reasonably 
 be conceived to stand ? ' . 
 
 Man, again, has a certain aeonian life ; possibly 
 ranging somewhere about the period of 70 years assigned 
 in the Psalms. That is, in a state as highly improved 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 309. 
 
 as human infirmity and the errors of the earth herself to- 
 gether with the diseases incident to our atmosphere, etc., 
 could be supposed to allow, possibly the human race 
 might average 70 years for each individual. This period 
 would in that case represent the " aeon " of the individual 
 Tellurian ; but the " aeon " of the Tellurian RACE would 
 probably amount to many millions of our earthly years ; 
 and it would remain an unfathomable mystery, deriving 
 no light at all from the septuagenarian " aeon " of the 
 individual ; though between the two aeons I have no 
 doubt that some secret link of connection does and must 
 subsist, however undiscoverable by human sagacity. 
 
 The crow, the deer, the eagle, &c., are all supposed to 
 be long-lived. Some people have fancied that in their 
 normal state they tended to a period of two* centuries. 
 I myself know nothing certain for or against this belief ; 
 but, supposing the case to be as it is represented, then 
 this would be the aeonian period of these animals, con- 
 sidered as individuals. Among trees, in like manner, the 
 oak, the cedar, the yew, are notoriously of very slow 
 growth, and their aeonian period is unusually long as 
 regards the individual. What may be the aeon of the 
 whole species is utterly unknown. Amongst birds, one 
 
 * I have heard the same normal duration ascribed to the 
 tortoise, and one case became imperfectly known to myself, 
 personally. Somewhere I may have mentioned the case in print. 
 These, at any rate, are the facts of the case : A lady (by birth a 
 Cowper, of the Whig family, and cousin to the poet Cowper, and 
 equally with him related to Dr. Madan, Bishop of Peterborough) 
 in the early part of this century mentioned to me that, in the 
 palace at Peterborough, she had for years known as a pet of the 
 household a venerable tortoise, who bore some inscription on his shell 
 indicating that from 1638 to 1643 he had belonged to Archbishop 
 Laud, who, if I am not mistaken, held the bishopric of Peterborough 
 before he was translated to London, and finally to Canterbury. 
 
3IO THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 species at least has become extinct in our own generation : 
 its aeon was accomplished. So of all the fossil species 
 in zoology, which Palaeontology has revealed. Nothing, 
 in short, throughout universal nature, can for a moment 
 be conceived to have been resigned to accident for its 
 normal aeon. All periods and dates of this order belong 
 to the certainties of nature, but also, at the same time, to 
 the mysteries of Providence. Throughout the Fi'ophets, 
 we are uniformly taught that nothing is more below the 
 grandeur of Heaven than to assign earthly dates in 
 fixing either the revolutions or the duration of great 
 events such as prophecy would condescend to , notice. 
 A day has a prophetic meaning, but what sort of day ? 
 A mysterious expression for a time which has no re- 
 semblance to a natural day — sometimes comprehending 
 long successions of centuries, and altering its meaning 
 according to the object concerned. " A time," and 
 " times," or " half a time " — " an aeon," or " aeons of 
 aeons " — and other variations of this prophetic language 
 (so full of dreadful meaning, but also of doubt and per- 
 plexity), are all significant. The peculiar grandeur of 
 such expressions lies partly in the din;iness of the 
 approximation to any attempt at settling their limits, 
 and still more in this, that the conventional character, 
 and consequent meanness of ordinary human dates, are 
 abandoned in the celestial chronologies. Hours and 
 days, or lunations and months, have no true or philo- 
 sophic relation to the origin, or duration, or periods of 
 return belonging to great events, or revolutionary 
 agencies, or vast national crimes ; but the normal period 
 and duration of all acts whatever, the time of their 
 emergence, of their agency, or their reagency, fall into 
 harmony with the secret proportions of a heavenly scale, 
 when they belong by mere necessity of their own internal 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 3II 
 
 constitution to tlie vital though hidden motions that are 
 at work in their own life and manifestation. Under the 
 old and ordinary view of the apocalyptic aeon, which 
 supposed it always to mean the same period of time — 
 mysterious, indeed, and uncertain, as regards our know- 
 ledge, but fixed and rigorously certain in the secret 
 counsels of God — it was presumed that this period, if it 
 lost its character of infinity when applied to evil, to 
 criminality, or to punishment, must lose it by a corre- 
 sponding necessity equally when applied to happiness 
 and the golden aspects of hope. But, on the contrary, 
 every object whatsoever, every mode of existence, has 
 its own separate and independent aeon. The most 
 thoughtless person must be satisfied, on reflection, even 
 apart from the express commentary upon this idea 
 furnished by the Apocalypse, that every life and mode of 
 being must have hidden within itself the secret why of 
 its duration. It is impossible to believe of any duration 
 whatever that it is determined capriciously. Always it 
 rests upon some ground, ancient as light and darkness,, 
 though undiscoverable by man. This only is discoverable,, 
 as a general tendency, that the aeon, or generic period of 
 evil, is constantly towards a fugitive duration. The aeon,. 
 it is alleged, must always express the same idea, what- 
 ever that may be ; if it is less than eternity for the evil 
 cases, then it must be less for the good ones. Doubtless 
 the idea of an aeon is in one sense always uniform, 
 always the same, viz., as a tenth or a twelfth is always 
 the same. Arithmetic could not exist if any caprice or 
 variation affected these ideas — a tenth is always more 
 than an eleventh, always less than a ninth. But this 
 uniformity of ratio and proportion does not hinder but 
 that a tenth may now represent a guinea, and next 
 moment represent a thousand guineas. The exact 
 
312 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 amount of the duration expressed by an aeon depends 
 altogether upon the particular subject which yields the 
 aeon. It is, as I have said, a radix ; . and, like an alge- 
 braic square-root or cube-root, though governed by 
 the most rigorous laws of limitation, it must vary in 
 obedience to the nature of the particular subject whose 
 radix it forms. 
 
 Reader, I take my leave. - 1 have been too loitering. 
 I know it, and will make such efforts in future to cultivate 
 the sternest brevity as nervous distress will allow. Mean- 
 time, as the upshot of my speculation, accept these three 
 propositions : — 
 
 (A.) That man (which is in effect every man hitherto), 
 who allows himself to infer the eternity of evil from the 
 counter eternity of good, builds upon the mistake of 
 assigning a stationary and mechanic value to the idea of 
 an aeon ; whereas the very purpose of Scripture in using 
 this word was to evade such a value. The word is 
 always varying, for the very purpose of keeping it faith- 
 ful to a spiritual identity. The period or duration of 
 ■every object would be an essentially variable quantity, 
 ■were it not mysteriously commensurate to the inner 
 nature of that object as laid open to the eyes of God. 
 And thus it happens, that everything in , this world, 
 possibly without a solitary exception, has its own separate 
 aeon : how many entities, so many aeons. 
 
 (B.) But if it be an excess of blindness which can 
 overlook the aeonian differences amongst even neutral 
 entities, much deeper is that blindness which overlooks 
 the separate tendencies of things evil and things good. 
 Naturally, all evil is fugitive and allied to death, 
 
 (C.) I sepairately, speaking for myself only, profoundly 
 believe that the Scriptures ascribe absolute and metaphy- 
 sical eternity to one sole Being, viz., to God ; and deriva- 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 313 
 
 tively to all others according to the interest which they 
 can plead in God's favour. Having anchorage in God, 
 innumerable entities may possibly be admitted to a 
 participation in divine aeon. But what interest in the 
 favour of God can belong to falsehood, to malignity, to 
 impurity ? To invest them with aeonian privileges, is in 
 effect, and by its results, to distrust and to insult the 
 Deity. Evil would not be evil, if it had that power of 
 self-subsistence which is imputed to it in supposing its 
 aeonian life to be co-eternal with that which crowns and 
 glorifies the good. 
 
3^4 THOMAS DE QUINCEY ; 
 
 ON THE GENIUS OF DE QUINCEY. 
 
 By SHADWORTH H. HODGSON, LL.D. 
 
 Eighteen years had passed since De Quincey's death, 
 when the summer of 1877 brought the day so much to 
 be dreaded for some, so much to be desired by others, 
 when concerning him also the truth was at last to be 
 told to the world. The admirable Life then published 
 by Mr. Page * gives as full and adequate an account of 
 him, in all essential particulars, as in all probability ever 
 will or can be given ; and from that account De Quincey 
 can be only a gainer. It is now obvious that the various 
 events related by himself in his " Confessions," " Auto- 
 biographic Sketches," and other papers, which might 
 have seemed to wear the colouring of romance, partly 
 from the discontinuity of the narrative, but more, 
 perhaps, from the embellishing style of the narrator 
 are not themselves romance but strict and sober 
 fact. At least they so fit in with the rest of his 
 surroundings, and with other events of his life now 
 made known to us, as to obtain an additional guarantee 
 of authenticity. 
 
 * Thomas de Quincey. His Life and Writings. With unpiib- 
 lished Correspondence. By H. A. Page. % vols. John Hogg, 
 1877. [The first edition appeared under the pseudonym " H. A. 
 Page." In the second the real name of the Author was given — 
 " Alexander H. Japp, LL.D."] 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 31S 
 
 This, however, is a small matter. What will justly 
 be of far greater importance to the general reader is, 
 that here at last De Quincey stands before us in the 
 light of common day, is at last rendered intelligible, a 
 human and not a mythical being, rescued from the 
 atmosphere of legend, which had not only hidden but 
 grievously distorted his image, by making him a mark 
 for thoughtless exaggeration, unsubstantial and some- 
 times even apocryphal anecdote. Thus it is now made 
 clear, that to describe him as " dreaming always," " his 
 existence a series of dreams," " large in promises, helpless 
 in failure of performance," to speak of him as " for once 
 exerting himself to write," and to say that " the human 
 mind " was the " one thing he knew anything about," 
 is to give a picture which is the very reverse of the 
 truth. 
 
 These things may to some seem trifles. Still, how 
 they could ever have been said, in the face of the four- 
 teen published volumes, revised by himself before his 
 death, since increased to sixteen, and even then not in- 
 cluding his " Logic of Political Economy," surpasses my 
 comprehension. Again, the imputation that the " credit 
 of being up in German Metaphysicians, Latin Schoolmen, 
 Thaumaturgic Platonists, Religious Mystics, &c.," was a 
 motive with De Quincey, or in the least degree led 
 him to speak with a pretension of knowledge where 
 he possessed none, becomes incredible from the true 
 delineation of De Quincey's character now given by 
 Mr. Page, and supported by the facts of his life. 
 
 My present purpose is solely with De Quincey as a 
 writer; what the leading traits of his intellectual 
 character are, what his rank, what his functions and 
 achievements in literature ; in one word v/ith his genius. 
 But for this purpose how great, I would almost say how 
 
31 6 THOMAS DE QUINCEV : 
 
 indispensable, is a true picture of the man. It would not 
 be so in every case, or at least not to the same extent ; 
 some men's writings are of plain and easy interpretation ; 
 but in De Quincey's case we have already seen how 
 a mistaken appreciation of the writings may flow from 
 a false imagination of the person. Mr. Stirling's theory 
 of the cause of De Quincey's error concerning Kant 
 {Fortnightly Review, Oct. 1867), for from this it was 
 that my last quotation came, will not hold water in 
 presence of the true account of De Quincey's character 
 now at last made public ; some other explanation of 
 that error (if error it be) must be sought ; and I shall 
 return to this point in its proper place, seeing that it 
 touches an important feature in De Quincey's literary 
 reputation. 
 
 For my own part I may say, that I needed not to 
 wait for Mr. Page's book to form a truer estimate of De 
 Quincey's character than the current legends, afforded. 
 Not only as a relative of the family was I acquainted 
 with' the outlines of his life, but it was my privilege in 
 the summer of 1853 to pass several days as a guest 
 under his roof His writings, those that I was then 
 acquainted with, had been to me a source of the most 
 valuable instruction ; not of delight only, but of instruc- 
 tion and insight into regions which would else have 
 remained closed to me. No one touches and lays bare 
 the inmost heart of a subject like De Quincey. You are 
 not kept at the surface or delayed with commonplaces, 
 nor are you told the " thing to say " about it, as from 
 a well-informed tutor getting up his pupils for the 
 examination room. But you are taken by the hand and 
 led into the centre of the subject by a direct though 
 flowery path, the path probably by which the teacher 
 himself had entered ; and while you are thinking only 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 317 
 
 of the flowers that strew, and the music that accompanies 
 your route, suddenly the region is illuminated, and a 
 pamoramic view disclosed of its branching recesses. 
 
 The independence, the originality, the propria marte 
 (to use a phrase often used by himself) of his exposition, 
 is in every case the most remarkable feature of it. You 
 have the subject treated at first hand. What struck me 
 most when I saw him was the precise resemblance 
 of his uttered to his written speech. The sentences 
 flowed forth on the air, in manner and form just the 
 same as they flowed along the printed page. They 
 came spontaneously forth, embodying the associative 
 act of thought as that action itself proceeded, and 
 adapted, like that act itself, to the remarks of the 
 interlocutors, in the ordinary course of give and take 
 conversation. It was thought made visible ; the 
 verification and exemplification of the dictum — the style 
 is the man. 
 
 He was, besides, the very soul of courtesy in conver- 
 sation, studious riot only to listen but respond to every 
 remark, and make it bear its full fruit. I remember 
 particularly his jubilant applause when an afternoon; 
 visitor reported a supposed epitaph on a great talker,, 
 
 beginning Hie facet . His fancy was captivated by 
 
 the effect which the change of a single letter produced,, 
 the • sudden heightening of the garrulousness which 
 nothing but death could check, making it leap, as it 
 were, to infinity, and at the same moment contrasting 
 it with an infinite silence. 
 
 But, after all, his own quiet flow of talk was the 
 greatest charm. Philomelus was the name which after- 
 wards in my own mind I gave him. For no description 
 that I have read of him seems to me to surpass in truth 
 and vividness the lines in which Thomson describes the 
 
3l8 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 bard Philomelus in the second canto of the " Castle of 
 Indolence " : 
 
 " a little druid wight, 
 
 Of withered aspect ; but his eye was keen, 
 
 With sweetness mixed. In russet brown Ledight, 
 « * * * » 
 
 He crept along, unpromising of mien. 
 Gross he who judges so. His soul was fair. 
 Bright as the children of yon azure sheen ! " 
 
 There you have De Quincey ; at least in his later days. 
 And few as are the touches, the portrait which they 
 compose is that of a living and breathing mortal. 
 
 The key to the comprehension of De Quincey's place in 
 literature may be given in few words. Two circumstances 
 combined. First, he was by natural constitution of an 
 intellectual turn, interested in " the things of the mind " 
 genuinely and for their own sake ; " intellectual in the 
 highest sense my pursuits and pleasures have been, even 
 from my schoolboy days," he tells us in the Preface to 
 the first edition of the "Confessions" (1822) ; and this 
 claim is fully borne out by the picture now presented in 
 the Life. He sat down as it were in a theatre, to study 
 and enjoy the spectacle of existence, past as well as 
 present, with keen and eager curiosity, needing no alien 
 stimulus derived either from the wish for applause or 
 from the necessity of bread-getting; and resolved to 
 see it with his own and not with others' eyes. His love 
 for learning was self-originated, his judgment self- 
 guided, his mind self-educated, at least if by self-educa- 
 tion is meant, not an impossible independence of in- 
 structors, but the active use and choice of instruction 
 by whomsoever offered, as contrasted with passive 
 submission to a teacher's guidance. 
 
 But, secondly, this aptitude and the knowledge which 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 319 
 
 it had led him to acquire, he was afterwards compelled 
 by circumstances, not led by choice, to turn to account 
 in the way of bread-getting for himself and his family. 
 He had to make the best of his acquirements, whatever 
 they were, in that direction. He had therefore to write 
 what would bring in immediate returns. He was a 
 private student suddenly called upon to become a pro- 
 fessional writer. The outward shape and form which 
 his activity should take was thus determined for him ; 
 its peculiar independence and originality remaining what 
 they were, and would have been, had he never published 
 a single magazine article. 
 
 What then was the value, what was the character, of 
 that mental independence and originality ? To answer 
 this, we must see what that epoch was at which his 
 career commenced. Now he was just fifteen at the 
 commencement of the present century. The nineteenth 
 century was dawning when his intellect was approaching 
 its early maturity. Two great tendencies seem to divide 
 between them the history of human mental development, 
 though their ultimate causes are still a mystery ; periods 
 of criticism and demolition alternate with periods of 
 creation and reconstruction. The nineteenth century 
 has been a period of the latter class. Speaking only of 
 England, — for to discuss the connection of English with 
 Continental thought, or the causes of development which 
 are special to the latter, would carry us too far afield, — 
 speaking only of England, the nineteenth century was 
 created, was made what it was, so far as the two vast 
 fields of Literature and Philosophy are concerned, by a 
 constellation of poets. They are the fathers of that 
 reaction, that reconstruction, that revival of the heart 
 as the unifying principle against the dispersing, criti- 
 cising, understanding, as the end or reXo? of all action 
 
320 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 and of all thought,-^which we call the nineteenth 
 century. A constellation of six stars, of primary- 
 magnitude though variously coloured light, — Words- 
 worth, Scott, Coleridge ; Byrcn, Shelley, Keats. 
 
 Of these, two at least, and those the two of keenest 
 radiance, shed their light over the total surface of human 
 interest, and are philosophers as well and as much as 
 they are poets, — Wordsworth and Coleridge. Of these 
 it maybe truly said, that the Englishman who has not 
 entered through them into the nineteenth century has 
 not fully and thoroughly entered therein. They are the 
 Door of the century. For just as there are two great 
 tendencies which give rise to alternating epochs of 
 dissolution and reconstruction in the mental history of 
 mankind, so also, and perhaps as a condition of its being 
 so, are there two orders of individual minds ; minds 
 genial, flexible, and imaginative, on the other side, minds 
 ungenial, inflexible, ratiocinative, on the other ; minds 
 that seem to be Nature's offspring and inherit her 
 spontaneity, and minds that seem to be her handiwork 
 and perform her tasks. 
 
 Foremost among the • purely intellectual character- 
 istics which distinguish these two orders of minds, are 
 those of intellectual subtilty and intellectual acuteness. 
 Subtilty is a perfection of the perceptive powers, 
 acuteness of the ratiocinative. A subtil mind is one 
 that perceives minute differences and similarities, and 
 minute shades of total character, in objects which it 
 pictures ; an acute mind perceives the remote logical 
 consequences of given facts, whether traced backwards 
 to causes or forwards to effects. The genial order of 
 mind, when powerful, is subtil ; the ungenial, when 
 powerful, is acute. And according to the predominance 
 of either order of minds, the period is stamped to which 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 32 1 
 
 they belong ; or rather, since the bulk of mankind 
 consists always and everywhere of minds of the latter 
 order, the greatest talent being but the highest grade of 
 ordinary common sense, and there being always fifty 
 minds that are acute for one that is subtil, — whenever 
 minds of imaginative genius and subtility appear in 
 conjunction, their epoch is marked, and their influence 
 is manifested by the occurrence of a period of recon- 
 struction. The eighteenth century was, intellectually, 
 the reign of acuteness ; the nineteenth the reaction of 
 subtility. 
 
 Through the door of Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
 De Quincey entered, and then became one of the main 
 channels by which their influence was diffused and made 
 operative in moulding the thoughts of other men after 
 the image of theirs. There is nothing more remark- 
 able than the way in which De Quincey himself recurs 
 to this, as one of his chief titles to consideration, thus 
 voluntarily and joyfully making it his pride to claim a 
 secondary place, and shine by a reflected light. The first 
 publication of the Lyrical Ballads (1798), including, as 
 he expressly mentions, Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner," 
 he calls "the greatest event in the unfolding of my 
 own mind." (Works, vol. ii. p. 142, Hogg's edition.) 
 And in the revised and enlarged " Confessions," in 
 1856, we read: "Was I then, in July, 1802, really 
 quoting from Wordsworth ? Yes, reader ; and I only in 
 all Europe." (" Confessions," Hogg's edition, p. 98.) 
 
 But there are ranks in the order of genius, as there 
 are ranks in that of talent. De Quincey, by virtue of 
 his combining great emotional sensibility with great 
 intellectual subtilty, belongs to the order of genius; 
 but he does not belong to the first rank in it. He has 
 genius, but it is not creative ; originality and independ- 
 
 Y 
 
322 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 ence, but they are employed in analysing, interpreting, 
 and expounding. There is such a thing as an original 
 and independent expositor. The insight which such an one 
 brings is drawn from his own sympathetic intelligence, 
 and is proportioned to its keenness and closeness ; it is 
 the insight of subtilty, not of acuteness. That is the 
 shape De Quincey's genius takes ; not creative, but 
 illuminative ; widely different in methbd and results 
 from that of merely talented expounders, however 
 ■conscientious and well-informed, who are acute without 
 kbeing subtil. He precedes you with a torch. And 
 presently, or perhaps even at the first sentence, the 
 :subject glows and the reader kindles ; as for instance in 
 the "Joan of Arc": 
 
 " What is to be thought of her ? What is to be thought of the 
 poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that — 
 like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judsea 
 -^rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the 
 religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station 
 in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right 
 hand of kings ? " 
 
 De Quincey had a theory of his own about genius, 
 which, if good things will bear repeating, well deserves 
 to recur, as it does, more than once in his works : 
 
 " Genius is intellectual power impregnated with the moral nature, 
 and expresses a synthesis of the active in man with his original 
 organic capacity of pleasure and pain. Hence the very word 
 genius, because the genial nature in its whole organisation is 
 expressed and involved in it. Hence, also, arises the reason that 
 genius is always peculiar and individual ; one man's genius never 
 exactly repeats another man's. But talent is the same in all men ; 
 and that which is effected by talent, can never serve to identify or 
 indicate its author. Hence, too, that, although talent is the object 
 of respect, it never conciliates love ; you love a man of talent 
 perhaps in concreto, but not talent, whereas genius, even for itself, 
 is idolized." 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 323 
 
 Mrs. Browning's fine saying about Napoleon in 
 " Crowned and Buried " irresistibly occurs to one. The 
 man, she says, was flawed : 
 
 — "but since he had 
 The genius to be loved, why let him have 
 The justice to be honoured in his grave." 
 
 De Quincey's analysis, in my opinion, exactly hits the 
 mark, and I am not aware that it can be claimed by any 
 one before him. 
 
 His own genius, as we have seen, takes the shape of 
 insight, employed in exposition. A clear, subtil, and 
 penetrating intelligence is employed, not without 
 humour, in exhibiting and unfolding the essential 
 characters of whatever subject he takes in hand. He 
 has enjoyed and comprehended the spectacle himself, 
 and he is resolved that you also shall enjoy and com- 
 prehend it. His own consciousness of this is the cause 
 of that didactic tone which is often noticeable, as well as 
 of that digressiveness and introduction of anecdote, 
 which some critics seem to have found somewhat weari- 
 some. If you want, as so many do want, a brief 
 handbook of any subject, De Quincey's are not the 
 pages to go to. If, again, you want pure amusement 
 and entertainment, without effort of your own, without 
 any previous interest in the subject-matter, this, too, is 
 not to be expected of De Quincey. He is neither a 
 schoolmaster nor a showman. But if you want any of 
 those subjects which he has treated shown to you as in 
 a magician's glass, its core laid bare, its relations to 
 kindred subjects, and its bearing on human interest 
 unfolded, and that in a manner which kindles and sus- 
 tains the interest, while it calls out your own energies 
 of mind to make the subject your own, — if this is what 
 you want, and if, at the same time, you will not grudge 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 a little time and some slight effort of attention, — then 
 take up a volume of De Quincey, say for example one 
 of those containing the articles on Parr or Bentley, Pope 
 or Goldsmith, or the Last Days of Kant, or in historj' 
 the Caesars, Cicero, Herodotus, Secret Societies, Homer 
 and the Homeridae, the Casuistry of Roman Meals, or 
 — last not least — the genial and penetrative sketch of 
 Shakespeare, and I venture to promise that you will 
 rise from the reading of it charmed, invigorated, and 
 instructed. Often, indeed, you will stumble on some 
 saying or aperqu, or on some piece of information, which 
 has since become common property, or been followed 
 up by others. Chance will have led you to its original 
 quarrying and purveyorship, to the first candle of which 
 your own knowledge is possibly a distant reverberation. 
 Nor is it a meagre list of subjects to which De 
 Quincey can introduce you. His sixteen volumes are 
 filled with essays in every direction of history, biography, 
 scholarship, criticism, literature. They are a perfect 
 mine of instruction for any one who is willing, not to 
 take his information and his opinions ready made from 
 his author, but to have subjects opened up for him, 
 questions concerning them broached, foundations for 
 future reading laid. In this way it is that De Quincey, 
 more truly than perhaps any author that can be named, 
 is a popular writer ; he writes to and for the people ; 
 and for the people it is that his writings are most 
 valuable. To quote from a little essay of his, "On 
 the Scriptural Expression for Eternity," written so 
 late as 1852, "As the reading "^VloXiz and the thinking 
 public is every year outgrowing more and more 
 notoriously the mere learned public, it becomes every 
 year more and more the right of the former public to 
 give the law preferably to the latter public, upon all 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 325 
 
 points which concern its own separate interests ; " which 
 is as fine a democratic sentiment as need be expected 
 from a high professing Tory. He aims at interesting a 
 wide and universal, not merely a select literary, audience, 
 notwithstanding the solidity of the information he has 
 to convey. And this very aim it is, or rather the style 
 adopted in consequence of it, which sets the seal of 
 permanence upon his writings, promising them more 
 than that ephemeral existence which is the inevitable 
 fate of most magazine articles, even when they are more 
 fully abreast of the latest information. 
 
 And here, at the risk of possibly seeming tedious, I 
 must interpose a remark which, as will shortly appear, 
 is most important for a true appreciation of our author. 
 It is that he belongs not to science but to literature. 
 He is an original expositor and interpreter, but, except 
 in one single case, he is a literary and not a scientific 
 expositor. His subjects for the most part are recog- 
 nised as literary subjects, and he does not attempt to 
 transcend that mode of treatment. He has no scientific 
 theory of History, or of Politics, to propound ; no science 
 of criticism ; no system of metaphysic, or of ethic. Not 
 that he was unacquainted, indeed very much the reverse, 
 with the best of what had been written on these sub- 
 jects ; but he comes forward with no speculations of a 
 systematic kind of his own. Every subject is open to a 
 literary, as well as to a scientific, treatment, and a literary 
 treatment is that which it receives at De Quincey's 
 hand. The sole exception is Political Economy, to 
 which he devotes a separate work, the " Logic of Political 
 Economy," published in 1844, in which he appears as the 
 expositor of Ricardo. The English edition of his works 
 excludes this admirable book, though admitting the 
 " Templars' Dialogues " on the same subject, probably on 
 
326 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 account of its more literary form. I shall recur to this 
 book presently.* 
 
 It is, then, as a literary writer that De Quincey must 
 in the first instance be judged. And here we are again, 
 met by a distinction which is his property ; again we 
 have to judge him as it were out of his own mouth, 
 simply because he it is who has laid down the funda- 
 mental distinctions of the matter. Do his works take 
 rank under the Literature of Power, or merely under 
 the Literature of Knowledge ? Do they aim at moving 
 the heart as well as teaching the understanding, or are 
 they confined to the latter function alone ? The distinc- 
 tion will be found in the essay on Pope (vol. ix. p. 5, 
 Hogg's edition). The passage is far too long for 
 transcription in its entirety ; a word or two from it must 
 suffice : 
 
 " Were it not that human sensibilities are ventilated and con- 
 tinually called out into exercise by the great phenomena of infancy, 
 or of real life as it moves through chance and change, or of litera- 
 ture as it recombines these elements in the mimicries of poetry, 
 romance, etc., it is certain that, like any animal power or muscular 
 energy falling into disuse, all such sensibilities would gradually 
 droop and dwindle. It is in relation to these great moral capacities 
 of man that the literature of power, as contra-distinguished from 
 that of knowledge, lives and has its field of action. It is concerned 
 with what is highest in man ; for the Scriptures themselves never 
 condescended to deal by suggestion or co-operation with the mere 
 discursive understanding : when speaking of man in his intellectual 
 capacity, the Scriptures speak not of the understanding, but of 
 ' the understanding hearty — making the heart, i.e. the great intuitive 
 
 * Since the above was written, which was in 1877, just after the 
 appearance of the Life, this omission has been happily rectified, 
 and the " Logic of Political Economy " included in a supplementary 
 volume, paged so as to be continuous with vol. xiii. of Messrs. 
 Black's edition of the Works. The supplementary volume was 
 published in 1878, 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 327 
 
 (or non-discursive) organ, to be the interchangeable formula fof 
 man in his highest state of capacity for the infinite." 
 
 There is a certain class of works, then, which by their 
 aim alone proclaim themselves as belonging to the 
 Literature of Power. They may be good bad, or 
 indifferent, in that class ; they may hit or they may 
 miss their aim ; but the class to which they belong is 
 marked out by their aim and scope alone. Their scope 
 proclaims their class, be their success in attaining' it 
 what it may. The poem, the drama, the romance, the 
 novel, the sermon, for instance, for all belong clearly 
 and inevitably to the power lilerature ; history, bio- 
 graphy, travels, criticism, philosophy, heiong primd facie 
 at least to the knowledge literature. Their avowed and 
 obvious aim is to instruct by communicating or inter- 
 preting facts. And it is under one or other of these 
 latter heads that most of De Quincey's writings fall, 
 except the " Political Economy," which is scientific. 
 
 But observe the limitation. I said their avowed and 
 obvious aim would mark them as belonging to the 
 knowledge literature. Is there, then, any other considera- 
 tion which can entitle them to a place in the literature 
 of power ? There certainly is. The two classes, are 
 not finally distinguished by the avowed and obvious aim,, 
 or even by the title of the works which are to be ranged 
 under them. Wherever the subject, being capable of an 
 imaginative and emotional treatment, is so handled as. 
 to be made the vehicle of moving the sympathies as. 
 well as instructing the understanding, then the work 
 rises, in virtue of this handling alotie, into the power 
 literature, and that without any formal claim being put 
 forward in the preface. But then see what follows ; so 
 far from the scope, irrespective of the success, determin- 
 ing its class, the reverse becomes the law, and the 
 
328 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 success of the wqrk in rousing and enlisting our 
 sympathies ensures our ranking it as a work of power, 
 irrespective of the avowed and obvious scope indicated 
 by its title. 
 
 Even subjects which already belong to science, much 
 more those which belong to literature, may be so treated 
 as to raise the work that treats them into a work of 
 power. The. great didactic poems of Virgil and 
 Lucretius, and (in prose) Edgar Poe's "Eureka," are 
 instances. Criticism, especially art-criticism, is closely 
 allied to the power literature. Mr. Ruskin's greater 
 works for instance, — who can mistake their claim to 
 this rank ? And Mr. Carlyle's *' P"rench Revolution '' is 
 an instance of the same thing in the domain of history. 
 There are such things, then, as works which belong to 
 the Literature of Power, by virtue of the way in which 
 the subjects are handled, the mode and manner of their 
 treatment, the key in which they are composed, the style 
 un which they are embodied. The manner and the style 
 create in them a soul under the ribs of death. 
 
 To this class of writings the Works of De Quincey 
 belong. They are militant for a place in the Literature 
 of Power. Not militant in the sense in which he 
 himself applies that term to the knowledge literature, 
 but in the sense that only success in moving our 
 sympathies, the recognition of which lies in opinion not 
 in proof, makes good the rank and dignity of the work. 
 If they rank with power literature, they do so not by 
 reason of the subjects treated of, but by virtue of the 
 method and manner of treatment, in one comprehensive 
 word, by their Style. 
 
 Of what, then, do De Quincey's works consist ? His 
 own " rude general classification " of them in the Preface 
 to the first volume of the collected English edition 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 329 
 
 revised by himself, and written therefore when the 
 revision was only just begun, is as follows. He makes 
 three classes, (i) papers which propose primarily to 
 amuse the reader, but which may happen occasionally 
 to reach a higher station, at which the amusement 
 passes into an impassioned interest ; — instance, the 
 " Autobiographic Sketches " ; (2) what he calls simply 
 " Essays," which address themselves purely to the under- 
 standing ; e.g. the Essenes, the Caesars, and Cicero ; (3) 
 "a far higher class of compositions, the 'Confessions of 
 an Opium-Eater,' and also (but more emphatically) the 
 ' Suspiria de Profundis.' " This classification dates back 
 to the beginning of the English revised edition, that 
 is, to 1853, at which time also the American edition, 
 referred to in the Preface, numbered not more than 
 seven volumes, if even so many. At present, with the 
 sixteen volumes of the English edition before us, 
 a somewhat more detailed classification may be of 
 service. 
 
 The English edition, even though for the most part 
 revised by the author, is, in some important respects, a 
 chaos. It does not, as a rule, inform us either of the 
 date at which the papers were written, or of the 
 magazine or periodical in which they appeared. Its 
 omissions are not unimportant, excluding, for instance, 
 both the tale of " Klosterheim " and the " Logic of Poli- 
 tical Economy." The latter is a serious defect, bearing, 
 as the edition now does, the ambitious title of Works. 
 The original title adopted by De Quincey was " Selections, 
 Grave and Gay, from Writings published and unpub- 
 lished " ; a title admirably expressing the nature and 
 purpose of the contents. I suppose it was thought that 
 Works would be more generally attractive, as promising 
 more ; while at the same time the public would not care 
 
33° THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 to be bored with so unpromising a subject as political 
 economy, let alone its Logic, or drouth upon drouth.* 
 
 Be it as it may, let us take stock of the most important 
 items of its contents. And suppose we classify as 
 follows. First let us place those works which are 
 more predominantly creative, and belong the most 
 clearly to the literature of power ; in the second group, 
 those in which this is less markedly the case, owing to 
 the claims of the matter predominating, in them, over 
 those of the manner. I say less markedly, for in almost 
 all there i? some touch, and in many the touches are 
 frequent and brilliant, of the creative spirit of genius and' 
 the spontaneous eloquence which embodies it. 
 
 I. {Literature of Power.) The Confessions and Sus- 
 piria. The English Mail Coach ; with its adjuncts. 
 The Glory of Motion, The Vision of Sudden 
 Death, The Dream Fugue. The Autobiographic 
 Sketches in vol. i. and ii. to the end of Early 
 Memorials of Grasmere. The two papers on ' 
 Murder. Joan of Arc. 
 
 These are the writings which, in my opinion, are the 
 chief pillars of De Quincey's fame, his surest title to a 
 lasting place, secure from chance and change, among the 
 immortals of his epoch. An original genius, individual 
 and therefore inimitable, has invested these works with 
 a perennial charm, disparate but not inferior to that 
 which breathes from the choicest among the " Essays of 
 Elia," or the " Imaginary Conversations " of Landor. 
 
 * I let this passage stand as it was written in 1877 ; and why ? 
 Because the publication of the supplementary volume containing 
 the " Logic of Political Economy " has now changed the blame it 
 expresses into a deserved compliment. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 33 1 
 
 II. {Literature of Knowledge) This, which is the most 
 numerous class, I would roughly subdivide as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Historical and Political. The Caesars. Cicero: 
 The Essenes. Judas Iscariot. The Philosophy of 
 Herodotus. Plato's Republic. The Revolution of 
 Greece. Greece under the Romans. Modern Greece. 
 Charlemagne. On War. Secret Societies. A Tory's 
 Account of Toryism. Political Parties of Modern 
 England. Falsification of English History. The 
 Revolt of the Tartars. Ceylon. Memorial Chronology. 
 &c. &c. ' 
 
 2. Social and Ethical. The Templars' Dialogues on 
 Political Economy. The Casuistry of Roman Meals. 
 French and English Manners. National Temperance 
 Movements. Modern Superstition. Protestantism. 
 Casuistry. The Pagan Oracles. The Theban Spliinx. 
 Miracles as Subjects of Testimony. Christianity as 
 an Organ of Political Movement. System of the 
 Heavens as revealed by Lord Rosse's Telescope. 
 Glance at the Works of Mackintosh. Presence of 
 Mind. The Spanish Military Nun (which in form is a 
 tale). &c. &c. 
 
 3. General Literature. , Homer and Homeridse. 
 Theory of Greek Tragedy., The Antigone of Sopho^ 
 cles. The Knocking at the Gate in "Macbeth." 
 Schlosser's Literary History of the i8th Century. 
 Milton. Alexander Pope. On Wordsworth's Poetry. 
 Language. Rhetoric. Style. Milton versus Southey 
 and Landor. Letters to a Young Man, &c. Ortho- 
 graphic Mutineers. Conversation. ^lius Lamia. 
 &c. &c. 
 
 4. Personal Criticism and Biography. Life of Shake- 
 
332 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 speare. The Sketches of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and 
 Southey, The Last Days of Kant. Whiggism in its 
 relations to Literature (Dr. Parr). Oliver Goldsmith. 
 Richard Bentley. Shelley. Keats. Charles Lamb. 
 Notes on Walter Savage Landor. Lord Carlisle on 
 Pope. Life of Pope. Life of Milton. Sortilege and 
 Astrology, Numerous minor biographical notices, 
 criticisms and translations, among them of Lessing's 
 Laocoon, of Kant's idea of an Universal History j 
 &c. &c. 
 
 It would take me far beyond the limits of a single 
 paper, as it would be also far beyond my own powers, 
 to follow De Quincey through this varied list, en- 
 deavouring to appraise the value of the several essays, 
 as contributions to the knowledge of the subjects 
 treated. Notwithstanding, it would be requisite in this 
 place to make some remarks on the only important work 
 not included in it, the " Logic of Political Economy," 
 did it not appear a better plan to give that subject a 
 separate treatment. For this is the only work in which 
 De Quincey appears as a distinctly scientific expositor, 
 and therefore is of peculiar importance in estimating his 
 mental powers. It has also been the subject of a dis- 
 paraging remark by John Stuart Mill, who is justly 
 considered a high authority on economical questions. 
 It is necessary, therefore, on De Quincey's behalf, that 
 this matter should be examined, if his claim to be 
 considered a sound reasoner on a scientific subject is to 
 be vindicated. This it will be my endeavour to do in 
 the following essay. 
 
 To keep, then, to literary ground. The list of Essays 
 is long and miscellaneous. The "once" that De 
 Quincey exerted himself to write must have been a once 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 333 
 
 that often happened. The reader will find traces, too, 
 of knowledge, power, and skill in treating other subjects 
 besides that of "the human mind." The basis of 
 whatever power he showed as an essayist was laid in a 
 large range of philosophic reading, and a habit of deep 
 and genuine philosophic thought. It is in vain for any 
 man to rely on mere acquaintance with the subject which 
 he treats, even when combined with great readiness and 
 skill in writing, if the result is to be in any measure an 
 acquisition to futurity. The subtil links that connect 
 it with the general fears and hopes and efforts of man- 
 kind will be inevitably wanting. The relations which 
 bind it to the other parts of human history, not being 
 perceived by the writer, will not be suggested by tacit 
 pervadure or explicit announcement to the reader. 
 There will be a charm wanting which alone can preserve 
 it in perennial freshness. Writings to live must be 
 impregnated with philosophy. 
 
 De Quincey's reputation among his contemporaries 
 both for depth of range and philosophic knowledge 
 stood very high. It was just the kind of reputation we 
 should expect from the character of the man ; the reputa- 
 tion not of a professor of any of the different branches 
 of philosophy, but of one who had studied at first hand 
 from love of the subject, and with a view to satisfy the 
 obstinate questionings of his own mind. His philosophic 
 reading has left indeed but little direct trace in his essays ; 
 and some of what there is he has not cared to include 
 among his republished works. But of his genuine delight 
 in philosophical literature there can be no doubt. It is 
 a mere straw, but it shows the way of the wind, to 
 mention that I have seen his copy of Giordano Bruno's 
 De Monade Numero et Figitra. Item de Innumerabilibus 
 Libri Octo, i2mo, 1591 : and on the fly-leaf at the end. 
 
334 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 there is written in De Quincey's clear hand, "Bought 
 this day, Wednesday, May 31st, 1809 ; — brought home 
 this evening between 8 and 9 o'clock." And I am told 
 by one who knew him well that, in later years, this 
 same little volume was his frequent companion, that he 
 would pace up and down the room with it in his hand, 
 repeating froni it and referring to it. His copy of 
 Spinoza's Ethic also, the Opera Posthuma of 1677, bears 
 on its fly-leaf, in the same hand, " Paid Mr. Webber 2^s. 
 for this book, — this morning, Thursday, July 26th, 
 1 8 10." Possibly the very same volume spoken of in an 
 amusing note to the essay on Bentley. These things 
 bear witness to something more than a mere book- 
 hunter's enthusiasm. 
 
 In ethical matters too De Quincey was a master. 
 Years ago I remember extracting from one of the 
 earlier published volumes of the American edition (" Life 
 and Manners," vol. i. p. 309, 1851) a passage in which 
 Paley is criticised. The passage is not reproduced in 
 the English edition, but may be found in Tait's Edin- 
 burgh Magazine for August 1835 (vol. ii. New Series, 
 p. 549). I hold it to have been the best piece of instruc- 
 tion in Ethic I ever received ; it led me right into the 
 heart of the theory, and became a foundation for future 
 thought to build on. The scope of the passage was to 
 distinguish two great questions in Ethic, one concerning 
 the ratio cognoscendi, the other the ratio essendi, of virtue, 
 and then to point out how the two are by Paley confused 
 with each other, and his answer to the latter (and that 
 according to De Quincey a wrong answer, namely, 
 Utility) offered as if it were an answer to the former, 
 which is the real question which Ethic has to answer. 
 
 De Quincey thus takes strong anti -utilitarian ground 
 in Ethics. He is disposed also by natural temperament 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 335 
 
 to take anti-determinist views in the question of free- 
 will ; but in this case, such is his logical clearness that, 
 in stating this question for decision, he shows himself 
 a necessarian (as it was then generally called) in fact, 
 though contesting the propriety of the name. De 
 Quincey was thus what we should now call a Free-will 
 Determinist. I have found a note in his well-known 
 hand on the cover of a copy of Crombie on " Philoso- 
 phical Necessity," 1793, which from its clearness and 
 brevity is well worth transcribing. 
 
 " Any reason, which has reference to action, we call a motive. 
 To act without a motive — i.e. without a reason — is (otherwise 
 expressed) to act irrationally. Now all action in obedience to a 
 motive the Necessarians call tiecessity : and to establish liberty, as 
 against them, it would be required of us to establish a case of action 
 without (or against) motives. The true liberty however — the true 
 self-determination — lies in this, that we by our own internal acts 
 create our own motives : those considerations, which to you or me 
 are motives, to another are not so : and why .? Because my 
 reflexions upon the tendency of particular acts, or because my 
 feelings connected with them, have given to certain considerations 
 a weight which raises them into the strength and power of motives. 
 Here lies our liberty. And to an obedience to motives thus created 
 it is an easy artifice to give the name of necessity : but that creates 
 no real necessity. The autonomy of Man is still secure. 
 
 "The answer to the Necessarians therefore — is to grant all they 
 urge, — but to deny their consequence or rather the propriety of 
 their denomination." 
 
 Yes, the automony, the self-determination, of the 
 conscious agent is the fact which once appeared 
 imperilled by the doctrine of necessity ; and De 
 Quincey's words depict the state of mind of one who, 
 being in the first place fully alive to the truth and value 
 of the automony, is then awakened to the fact that it is 
 not endangered by a truth which is its complement, this 
 namely, that, " nothing is that swerves from law ; " 
 
336 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 liberty itself beinp obedience to law, but to law imposed 
 from within, not from without ; or in other words, that 
 liberty is one of the modes of necessity, and the 
 human will, in all its freedom, one of the works of 
 nature. 
 
 The foundations of De Quincey's success as critic and 
 essayist were thus laid in wide philosophic reading, deep 
 and accurate philosophic thinking. But these founda- 
 tions were for the most part kept out of sight. He 
 wrote but little on philosophy, and even that little he 
 did not see fit to include in the revision of his works. 
 Indeed, it seems as if, in later years, having achieved 
 nothing in philosophy, he would obliterate whatever 
 claims he may once have had to rank as a philosopher, 
 and bury in oblivion the hopes which as a young man 
 he had cherished in that direction. "My proper 
 vocation, as I well knew, was the exercise of the 
 analytic understanding. . Now, for the most part, 
 analytic studies are continuous, and not to be pursued 
 by fits and starts, or fragmentary efforts," — ^he writes 
 in the first edition of the " Confessions" (1822), p. 148. 
 But these words are omitted from the second edition 
 of 1856. 
 
 Still it remains true, that his real vocation was what 
 he says, and the power and faculty of mind remained 
 the same, although one part of the career was missed, 
 which might have been opened by it. He did exercise 
 the analytic understanding, but it was upon non-philo- 
 sophical subjects. It is a rare combination of faculties 
 that distinguishes him ; the triple combination of 
 analytic subtilty and grasp of thought with (i) memory 
 for and interest in all kinds of details relating however 
 remotely to life and manners, and (2) a profound power 
 of appreciating and enjoying the most imaginative 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 337 
 
 poetry. And two of these are rare in combination ; how- 
 much rarer the three. 
 
 One result of this suppression of what he had thought 
 or written on philosophy, seeing that it was not and 
 could not be complete, has been unfortunate. It has 
 caused him to be judged by the fragmentary utterances 
 which remain, and by these read in connection with the 
 high admiration for his philosophic powers entertained 
 by his contemporaries. I have a special instance of 
 this in view, Mr. J. H. Stirling's demolition of a passage 
 of De Quincey on Kant (Fortnightly Review, Oct. 1 867). 
 I say demolition because I think that in the main Mr. 
 Stirling's criticism of that passage is correct. It is so 
 because the point of view from which it is pronounced 
 is more commanding and comprehensive. What De 
 Quincey's point of view was I will presently show ; 
 but first I must say that it strikes me as somewhat 
 ungenerous, to use no stronger term, when one of a 
 generation far better versed in German philosophical 
 literature, than was De Quincey's, is extreme to tax 
 the shortcomings of a writer who not only lacked the 
 advantages which we enjoy, but who was himself among 
 the foremost of those to whom our own generation 
 mainly owes its enjoyment of them. The deadness of 
 those times to those matters was far greater than the 
 deadness of the present time, great as that is ; and in 
 England at least I do not know of any one who did 
 more than De Quincey to kindle a genuine interest in 
 them. 
 
 Passing over points of secondary importance, the main 
 drift of the passage in question is briefly this, that De 
 Quincey represents Kant's mind as essentially a destruc- 
 tive one, whereas Mr. Stirling says it was constructive 
 essentially, and construction his great ruling purpose. 
 
 Z 
 
338 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 And Mr. Stirling's view is, in my opinion at least, 
 clearly right; De Quincey's clearly wrong. But I 
 would urge that it is only fair to take De Quincey's 
 point of view into account. The passage in question 
 occurs in connection with the subject of Christianity and 
 Coleridge's Unitarianism. It is in fact a waif and stray 
 from a larger body ; and if read in connection with the 
 rest; the point of view occupied by De Quincey in 
 regard to Kant will become manifest ; and his expres- 
 sions from that point of view, if not justified, will at any 
 rate be shown to demand an explanation very different 
 from the charlatanism which (to sum it up in a word of 
 my own) is Mr. Stirling's hypothesis. 
 
 It is one thing to read philosophy with a view to make 
 a systematic study of the subject for its own sake ; it is 
 another to read it for the purpose of throwing light on 
 questions and views with which the reader's mind is 
 already pre-occupied ; and it is yet another to read it 
 for the sake of being able to display one's reading after- 
 wards. Mr. Stirling supposes that, because De Quincey 
 was not in the first case, therefore he was in the third. 
 The second case, which is the real one, escaped him. 
 
 De Quincey approached Kant with the pre-occupation 
 of theology ; the philosophy, or rather what did duty 
 for one, with which he started was that of a thoughtful 
 disciple of the Church of England ; the question with 
 him was, what light was thrown by the originator of the 
 Transcendental Theory upon this world of thought and 
 belief. From that point of view it was that Kant 
 appeared to him, as he did to many others, utterly 
 destructive, leaving no basis which was at once positive 
 and speculative, for a theological creed at all. Kant's 
 theory sweeps wholly away the old speculative founda- 
 tions of theology, replaces them by proving that we can 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 339 
 
 neither affirm nor yet deny any speculative doctrine in 
 their place, and then relies, not on the speculative but 
 on the practical reason, for supplying a positive founda- 
 tion for religion. ^This could not but appear utterly 
 unsatisfactory to one in De Quincey's position, who was 
 not studying the philosophy for its own sake, but for 
 the sake of its bearing on the questions suggested by his. 
 creed. 
 
 Whoever will take the trouble to look into a paper of 
 De Quincey's contributed to Taifs Edinburgh Magazine 
 for June 1836 (vol. iii. New Series, p. 350), will find 
 there not only a very good, though brief, sketch of the 
 main points in the " Critic of Pure Reason," but also 
 ample confirmation of what I have said about De 
 Quincey's point of view. "Let a man," he says, 
 " meditate but a little on this " [the transcendental theory- 
 of the idea of Cause] " or other aspects of this transcen- 
 dental philosophy, and he will find the steadfast earth, 
 rocking as it were beneath his feet ; a world about him,, 
 which is in some sense a world of deception ; and a 
 world before him, which seems to promise a world of 
 confusion, or a ' world not realised' " (p. 357). And 
 again : " As often as I looked into his works, I ex- 
 claimed in my heart, with the widowed queen of 
 Carthage, using her words in an altered application— 
 ' Qusesivit lucem — ingemuitque repertd.' " 
 
 For from the same paper we find that, in spite of its 
 apparent unprofitableness and negation, the Trans- 
 cendental theory had in the main commanded his 
 assent. "These are the two primary merits of the 
 transcendental theory — ist. Its harmony with mathe- 
 matics, and the fact of having first, by its doctrine of 
 space, applied philosophy to the nature of geometrical 
 evidence ; 2ndly, That it has filled up, by means of its 
 
 z 2 
 
340 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 doctrine of thevcategories, the great hiatus in all schemes 
 of the human understanding from Plato downwards. 
 All the rest, with a reserve as to the part which concerns 
 the practical reason (or will), is of more questionable 
 value, and leads to manifold disputes. But I contend 
 that, had transcendentalism done no other service than 
 that of laying a foundation, sought but not found for 
 ages, to the human understanding — namely, by showing 
 an intelligible genesis to certain large and indispensable 
 ideas — it would have claimed the gratitude of all 
 profound inquirers " (p. 359). 
 
 De Quincey's position, then, is that of a man forced 
 to give an unwilling assent to the main conceptions of 
 a system which he regards with dismay, as destroying, 
 or at least endangering, the best hopes and aspirations 
 of humanity. Observe, however, his expressly excepting 
 the doctrine of the practical reason from what is doubt- 
 ful, and placing it with what is sound and valuable, in 
 Kant's system. The exception is significant, especially 
 when read in the light of some words on the same 
 subject, written nearly four years later. I refer to one 
 of the most interesting of all the personal sketches which 
 ever came from De Quincey's pen, that on the highly 
 gifted Charles Lloyd, a sketch which I suppose there 
 were valid reasons for omitting from his republished 
 writings. At the end of this touching memoir there is 
 a passage of singular beauty on the voices of nature 
 which speak to us of hopes of immortality beyond the 
 grave ; a passage which concludes as follows : 
 
 " But on that theme — Beware, reader ! Listen to no intellectual 
 argument. One argument there is, one only there is, of philosophic 
 value : an argument drawn from the moral nature of man : an 
 argument of Immanuel Kant's. The rest are dust and ashes." 
 
 Now there is no law, I suppose, either human or 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 34 1 
 
 divine, against any man's reading Kant, and even letting 
 the world know what he for his part finds there, if any 
 one is interested in hearing it. Nor is it, I believe, 
 necessary, first to produce a certificate from a college of 
 authors, stating that you are enamoured of Metaphysic 
 for her own sake, and intend to lecture on her sublime 
 perfections. De Quincey made no such announcement ; 
 but there were hundreds who were glad to hear his 
 report of Kant, having themselves much the same 
 questions to put to that oracle as De Quincey had. It 
 is beside the mark to contrast, as Mr. Stirling does, the 
 sound and genuine work which Kant did in philosophy 
 with the hollow and windy work which is all that De 
 Quincey gets credit for. Kant was a man of science, 
 De Quincey a man of letters. True, we might possibly 
 have had a man of science in De Quincey ; but then we 
 should hardly have had the man of letters also. It is. 
 unjust to represent his powers as wasted and thrown 
 away, merely because they were not turned into scien- 
 tific channels. 
 
 More might be said in reply to Mr. Stirling's strictures 
 on De Quincey ; for instance, as to his criticism of 
 Kant's style, and as to the " limited circle " within which 
 " none durst tread but he," which clearly refers to the 
 little group of conceptions which are the core of the 
 Transcendental theory. But to go into detail on minor 
 points would require a separate paper. Judgment once 
 amended on the main point, the rest must be left to rule 
 themselves as best they may, in accordance therewith. 
 One word, however, before parting with Mr. Stirling, on 
 a purely literary matter. Possibly he may be pleased 
 (in his next edition) to alter his remark, twice re- 
 peated, that tumultuosissiniento is a word used by De 
 Quincey. I remember on one occasion, he uses the word 
 
342 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 tumultuosissimamente. But the former word I find 
 neither in De Quincey nor yet in the dictionary. 
 
 After all, then, it is very questionable whether any 
 part of De Quincey's vocation was really missed, whether 
 in declining studies of a scientific character he was 
 yielding to a stress of circumstances which another 
 might have eluded, whether he was not really obeying 
 the instincts of character with which nature had endowed 
 him. His real turn of mind, subtil and acute as it was, 
 inclined strongly to the concrete and the personal, to 
 the pomps and glories of the world and the interests of 
 living human beings. He loved imaginations more than 
 thoughts, and thoughts for the sake of imaginations. 
 Had he given himself to philosophy, it is easy to predict 
 his affinities ; his name would have been one of that 
 numerous list, in which those of Plato and Giordano 
 Bruno are the most illustrious. 
 
 ■ This is clear from many passages ; for instance, one 
 in which, speaking of the Lucretian — Primus in orbe 
 deos fecit timm', he says, No, not timor, say rather sensus 
 infiniti {" Modern Superstition," vol. iii. p. 290). In this 
 he puts his finger on the characterising differentia, of 
 religion. It is not fear, no, nor yet love, which by 
 themselves are the source of religion ; these by them- 
 selves are terrestrial ; It is the mystery that accompanies 
 them that makes them celestial, by giving them a 
 celestial object, and giving man a sense of belonging, 
 through them, to the infinite and unseen world. The 
 remark here made by De Quincey has yet a great part 
 to play, a part too often unsuspected, in the theory of 
 the origin of religions and early stages of civilisation. 
 But this, of course, by no means implies that every 
 theory must be true, which professes to base itself upon 
 that idea. Or again, taking the concluding sentence 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES, 343 
 
 of the Dream Vision, in the " System of the Heavens," 
 embodying an image which he tells us is taken from 
 Jean Paul Richter : 
 
 "Then the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven 
 of heavens, saying, ' End there is none to the universe of God ? 
 
 Lo! also THERE IS NO BEGINNING.'" 
 
 There is a winged as well as a wingless genius in 
 philosophy ; and those that are endowed with it belong 
 irrevocably to literature, whether they pursue philosophy 
 or not as their employment in chief. 
 
 Humour and pathos, — these in literature are the 
 wings of genius, being two chief modes of imagination. 
 Whatever ministers occasion for mirth becomes 
 humorous when it is illumined by imagination, and 
 whatever ministers to sorrow, under the same magic 
 touch, becomes pathetic. As wit is the fun of talent, so 
 . is humour the fun of genius. Now both with humour 
 and with pathos De Quincey abounds. They spring up 
 spontaneously under his pen. And much of the beauty 
 of his style consists, when the burden is pathetic, in its 
 quietness and simplicity, in what it withholds rather 
 than in what it expresses, so that, owing to this unex- 
 pressed background, we are made to feel the special 
 case as part and parcel of the universal lot. 
 
 Many are the passages of exquisite and tender beauty 
 scattered up and down his writings, free from ambitious 
 ornament and turgid phrase, passages in which we are 
 swiftly but gently lifted into a serener region, or in 
 which sometimes " the tender grace of a day that is 
 dead " is brought home to the heart, as by the placid 
 spectacle of a clear autumn sunset. Take, for instance, 
 the following : 
 
 " At present, and for many a year, I am myself the sole relic 
 from that household sanctuary — sweet, solemn, profound— that 
 
344 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 concealed, as in some ark floating on solitary seas, eight persons, 
 since called away, all except myself, one after one, to that rest 
 which only could be deeper than ours was then." — Confessions, 
 p. 30, Hogg's edition. 
 
 Or this from the essay on Goldsmith : 
 
 " Their names ascend in songs of thankful commemoration, but 
 seldom until the ears are deaf that would have thrilled to the 
 music." 
 
 Or this in another key, a crime being in question, the 
 massacre of prisoners at Jaffa in 1799 : 
 
 " The fugitives did so ; they came back — some trusting, some 
 doubting. But strictly impartial was their welcome on shore. To 
 the trusting there was no special favour ; to the doubting no 
 separate severity. All were massacred alike ; and in one brief 
 half-hour a loose scattering of soil rose as a winding-sheet over the 
 forty-two hundred corpses, that heaved convulsively here and there 
 for a moment, and then all was still." — Casuistry, vol. viii. p. 265. 
 
 Or if we could have a passage where the writer plainly 
 intends putting forth his strength, let us take this, from 
 the conclusion of the " Joan of Arc " : 
 
 " Bishop of Beauvais ! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold — 
 thou upon a down bed. But for the departing minutes of life, both 
 are oftentimes alike. At the farewell crisis, when the gates of 
 death are opening, and flesh is resting from its struggles, oftentimes 
 the tortured and the torturer have the same truce from carnal tor- 
 ment ; both sink together into sleep ; together both, sometimes, 
 kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists were gathering fast 
 upon you two, bishop and shepherd girl, — when the pavilions of 
 life were closing up their shadowy curtains about you — let us try, 
 through the gigantic glooms, to decipher the flying features of your 
 separate visions." 
 
 Humour is confessedly a much vexed question. Those 
 that have it not are tempted to deny the distinction 
 between wit and humour, just as those who lack 
 imagination persist in identifying it with fancy, and too 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 34$ 
 
 many of those who lack genius are incapable of distin- 
 guishing it from talent. The essence of humour I take 
 to be the same everywhere, but the ground on which it 
 springs is different ; there is the humour of inventive, 
 and there is the humour of analytic minds. There is 
 the humour of Shakespeare or of Swift, which not only 
 clothes the characters which they create, but is one of 
 the precedent motives and ingredients in their creation. 
 And there is the humour which is shown in the presenta- 
 tion of given and pre-existing characters and situations, 
 bringing out whatever humorous quality is already 
 latent in them ; a kind of humour, be it noted, which is 
 included in the former as the less in the greater, so that 
 he who has the first has both, but not vice versa. One 
 thing, however, is clear ; there is no humour without 
 subtilty, as there is no wit without acuteness. It is 
 natural that the non-creative humour should move by 
 anthithesis, by inversion of relations, and generally 
 by imagining some critical circumstance the I'everse of 
 what it actually is. It depends upon subtility as to its 
 condition. 
 
 This is the usual way in which De Quincey's humour 
 moves ; he imagines the contrary, the contrast, of what 
 he is describing, thinks what it might appear to specta- 
 tors with different interests, or from an opposite point of 
 view ; as, for instance, when he talks of " the general 
 fate of travellers that intrude upon the solitude of 
 robbers," or when he professes to palliate his obscurity 
 of style by assuring you that, though rather obscure, he 
 will be " not at all more so than Marinus in his Life of 
 Proclus." This at least is the logical or intellectual 
 machinery which becomes the vehicle of that shade of 
 playfulness and fun which is the chief characteristic of 
 De Quincey's humour, as it is also of Charles Lamb's. ■■ 
 
34^ THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 The Murder papers are instances of this kind of humour 
 sustained from beginning to end, and their central idea 
 of treating murder as a fine art is an instance of it. The 
 charm of these papers consists far more in the number 
 and variety of the faces under which this central idea is 
 constantly peeping out, and the unflagging vivacity with 
 which the stream of fun flows on, than in the separate 
 quotability of absurd incident or witty antithesis. Or 
 again, take the description of the state-coach in China, 
 where " it was resolved by acclamation that the box was 
 the imperial throne, and for the scoundrel who drove, he 
 might sit where he could find a perch ; '' and who was 
 accordingly kicked into the inside, where " he had all 
 the inside places to himself" Or again, the fishing up 
 the duns from the bath, in the paper entitled " Sortilege 
 and 'Astrology." Or again, to mention but one more 
 case, the whole description of the nursery party in the 
 "Autobiographic Sketches," pai'ticularly the schemes of 
 his eldest brother for walking on the ceiling, like the 
 flies, only much better. " ' Pooh ! ' he said, ' they are 
 impostors ; they pretend to do it, but they can't do it as 
 it ought to be done. Ah ! you should see me standing 
 upright on the ceiling, with my head downwards, for 
 half an hour together, and meditating profoundly.'" 
 That meditating profoundly is exquisite, and quite 
 dramatises the character. 
 
 But it is not only in those passages in which, from 
 time to time, he rises aloft upon the wings of humour 
 or pathos, nor even in those where he is consciously 
 putting forth his whole command over the powers of 
 prose, that the main beauty of De Quincey's work 
 consists. Its charm lies chiefly in the sometimes stately, 
 but always natural and equable movement of his 
 style at its ordinary level ; a style that diffuses an 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 34/ 
 
 atmosphere of smiles and gaiety around it, a sunny 
 style, 
 
 " Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear." 
 
 but a style highly distasteful to the gloomy and morose, 
 and to such as think that prose is the inalienable 
 appanage of pedagogues. If language, to use Words- 
 worth's fine expression developed by De Quincey, is not 
 the mere dress but rather the incarnation of thought, 
 then, style of some kind being inseparable from 
 language, a good style is the perfection, grace, beauty, 
 health, of that incarnation. It is besides of the greatest 
 importance as an aid to exposition, even in treating 
 ordinary matters. As De Quincey puts it : " Style has 
 two separate functions — first to brighten the intelligibility 
 of a subject which is obscure to the understanding ; 
 secondly, to regenerate the normal /ow^/' and impres- 
 siveness of a -subject which has become dormant to the 
 sensibilities " (vol. ix. p. 94). 
 
 But how much more is this the case, when the subject 
 in hand is such as to require and repay the brightest 
 light that can be brought to bear upon it ; when it is' 
 evanescent and subtly interwoven moods of mind, 
 hardly to be called thoughts or even imaginations, that 
 have to be arrested and interpreted for others ; moods it 
 may be which even the subject of them finds it difficult 
 to arrest and interpret to himself. He who cultivates 
 style for this purpose and in this way, even though his 
 success be small, deserves the praise of perfecting the 
 power and enlarging the grasp of thought, by increasing 
 the subtilty and keenness of language which is its 
 embodiment. The reader's mental powers are increased 
 by the effort to apprehend, as the writer's are by the 
 eiifort to communicate, the finer shades of emotion and 
 
348 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 of thought which fleet over the dim mirror of conscious- 
 ness. What one man thus describes as passing in 
 himself another may have experienced without attempt- 
 ing to describe ; but if in reading he recognises it, he 
 gains not only himself, he gains also a brother in the 
 describer. 
 
 It is true that the profoundest and most sublime 
 thoughts are ordinarily beyond the reach of any style of 
 prose writing to convey, though not perhaps to indicate. 
 Oyer and above the finest and most accurate description, 
 something else is requisite to convey its meaning to the 
 reader, namely, an effort on his part to apprehend it ; 
 and to spur the apprehension to this effort is generally 
 far more beyond the power of prose than of verse. 
 Prose, however balanced and musical in rhythm and 
 cadence, or however vivid by abruptness or antithesis it 
 may be made, cannot so isolate its subjects from common 
 images as to raise them into the higher and purer parts 
 of the emotional atmosphere ; it carries them along the 
 ground, with the narrative or argumentative matter 
 which is the necessary burden of prose writing. But 
 the use of metre is of itself an announcement that the 
 burden of prose is not to be expected, that the reader 
 must supply the filling in of circumstance for himself, 
 must place himself by an effort of his own in an atti- 
 tude to which the feelings that are expressed become 
 intelligible. 
 
 Again, while metre thus calls on the reader to make 
 an effort of his own, it also at the same time aids and 
 stimulates it. A raising of the mental key, a solemnity 
 of tone, is given by the mere use of metre, which it 
 would be vainly sought to inspire by the most perfect 
 prose. Not to mention the minor advantage that the 
 metre directs the emphasis more pointedly, by irresistibly 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 349 
 
 indicating those words on which the burden of thought 
 is laid. For instance, in Shelley's " Adonais " : 
 
 " Oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 
 Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 
 Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair." 
 
 In prose the imaginative word Deep would need intro- 
 duction if not apology ; and neither dream nor feeds 
 would have an emphasis inevitably directed upon them, 
 as it now is by the metre. 
 
 Although, then, prose can never be the equivalent of 
 verse as a vehicle for poetic imagination, yet there are 
 functions which it can perform, but has never yet 
 performed fully, beauties and graces which are legiti- 
 mately its own, but which it has never yet fully 
 developed. Just as architecture, notwithstanding that 
 it is subordinate to use, is bound to aim at all the 
 beauty, elegance, and ornament, of which it is capable, 
 in subordination to that use, so the art of prose writing 
 has special capacities of beauty which by the law of 
 perfection it is bound to aim at, while satisfying at 
 the same time the logical uses which are its necessary 
 conditions. Apply these principles to De Quincey's 
 interpretive descriptions of subtil and evanescent moods 
 of mind, and I think it will appear no idle boast that 
 he makes, when, in the Preface to his first volume, he 
 speaks of the " Confessions " and " Suspiria " as " modes 
 of impassioned prose ranging under no precedents that 
 he is aware of in any literature ; " by which of course 
 he does not mean that they are superior to, but merely 
 different from, preceding writings. 
 
 To deal fully with De Quincey's style would require 
 a volume, and to do it well would tax the powers of 
 the most accomplished critic. But it would abundantly 
 repay the labour, should any one undertake it, to 
 
3SO THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 analyse the motives and methods of De Quincey's style 
 and exhibit its characteristics, by comparing them with 
 those of other recognised masters of prose writing, such 
 for instance as Landor, Arnold of Rugby, Lord 
 Macaulay, Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Ruskin, and (last not least) 
 Cardinal Newman. 
 
 But the critical science by the canons of which such 
 an attempt must be guided, the science of style, exists 
 as yet but very imperfectly. Style is, in fact, one entire 
 but inseparable half of the whole sphere of written and 
 spoken literature ; it is the manner of it, as distinguished 
 from the matter. Most interesting it is to observe, in 
 the great founder of literary criticism, Aristotle, in his 
 Rhetoric, how at a certain place in that treatise. Book III. 
 cap. 12, a distinction proper to the larger subject of 
 style cuts in athwart, and even threatens to confuse the 
 distinctions proper to the smaller subject of rhetoric. 
 All public speaking, the subject of rhetoric, Aristotle 
 divides into three heads of consultative, forensic, and exhi- 
 bitory speaking {avfi^ovKevTiKov, SiKavtKov, iiriSeiKTiKov 
 7ej'os). But public speaking and the speeches composed 
 for it are but one part of literature as a whole, are but 
 one part of that whole, of which style, the manner Aow, 
 is one inseparable half, and with which therefore it is 
 co-extensive. And accordingly in the third Book which 
 is devoted to style, and at the chapter named, a cardinal 
 distinction applicable to style is introduced, under which 
 the styles proper to the three kinds of public speaking 
 have, somehow or other, to be reduced. This distinction 
 is into style proper to writing which is to be read or 
 recited, and style proper to speaking against competitors 
 which is to be heard in a public assembly {ypa(j)tKri and 
 oyccvta-nKT] Xe^i?). And Aristotle settles the matter 
 by bringing the style of his exhibitory speaking 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. -351 
 
 under the head of style proper to writings, and leaving 
 the consultative and forensic styles under that of style 
 proper to speaking against competitors in public. 
 
 Aristotle thus adumbrates the treatment of style 
 as one inseparable half of the whole field of literature, 
 the manner being inseparable from the matter of every 
 phrase, every transition, every turn of thought however 
 minute ; inseparable, as the members of all distinctions 
 of strictly philosophical analysis are. But the theory of 
 Style so understood has, so far at least as I am aware, 
 remained where Aristotle left it, down not indeed to our 
 own days, but to the days of De Quincey. He added 
 a further distinction, which seems to me as important in 
 the theory of the subject as his own example in the 
 practice of it. Language we have seen him hold with 
 Wordsworth to be the incarnation of thought ; that is, 
 it is the expression externally of the motions of the 
 mind in dealing with its objects, whatever they may be ; 
 it is the mind visibly and audibly at work ; its manner 
 or mode of dealing with the things that occupy it. 
 Starting from this basis, the distinction which he draws 
 is this. Style, he says, may be treated either as an 
 organic or as a mechanic thing ; organic so far as it 
 expresses the living motions of the mind, mechanic so 
 far as those motions are subject to rules of art which 
 may be acquired, transmitted and learnt. There are 
 accordingly two branches of the subject, the organology 
 and the mechanology of style. (See the paper on Style, 
 vol. xi. p. 194, Hogg's edit.) 
 
 This distinction sets the whole subject of style in a 
 new and I think a true light ; it is at once philosophical 
 and profound ; philosophical because its members are 
 inseparables as well as opposites, and profound because 
 it refers the nature and power of style to their deepest 
 
3S2 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 source, namely the character and power of the mind. 
 Most of the distinctions given in treatises of Rhetoric 
 are distinctions of the mechanology, laying down 
 negative rules, precepts, what to avoid, illustrated by 
 examples of faults. The positive part of the art of style 
 is included chiefly in the organology, and this, so far as 
 it can be learnt at all, must be learnt by studying the 
 great masters, and by imbibing if possible their spirit. 
 
 When for instance, Shakespeare speaks of "taking 
 arms against a sea of troubles," this is an offence against 
 the mechanology. But when he makes Prospero say to 
 Miranda (Tempest, act i. sc. 2) : 
 
 " The fringed curtains of thine eye advance. 
 And say what thou seest yond," 
 
 this is a beauty of the organology, and of the highest 
 kind. The fanciful expression is the natural outcome of 
 the peculiar mood of Prospero. He had laid a plan the 
 development of which he is watching with heightened 
 and pleasurable expectation, and the first critical 
 moment is at hand, — Ferdinand is coming into sight. 
 The image of his daughter, too, in her morn of youth 
 and loveliness, is present to him, and for her sake his 
 plan has been laid. The exalted expression is not only 
 natural to this state of mind, but also, being so, contri- 
 butes to make the spectators aware that this is Prospero's 
 state. It is a trait in the dramatic delineation of Pros- 
 pero. That is Shakespeare's style ; that is his living 77tind. 
 But to return from De Quincey's theory to his practice, 
 or rather to De Quincey himself. It is a characteristic, 
 and indeed almost singular circumstance, that the 
 greater portion of the Autobiographic Writings, and 
 considerably the larger half even of the " Confessions of 
 an English Opium-Eater," are occupied with the feelings 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 353 
 
 and events of childhood and boyhood. How few are 
 the writers who have thought it worth their while to go 
 back upon their early days and minutely depict the 
 scenes of their childhood and early youth step by step, 
 as they unrolled themselves, with all their accompani- 
 ment of hope and fear, doubting and debate, and the 
 changing yet all-important colouring of momentary 
 feeling. Introspection is common, but not the record of 
 an introspection into the moods of boyhood, recalled in 
 later life, as if for the purpose of exhibiting an actual 
 example of the child being father of the man. 
 
 Yet if we would have a true, an intimately true, 
 picture of character in manhood, it is to the springs of 
 character in childhood that we must trace it back, for 
 there lies the succession of turning points which have 
 given it its lasting ply. There, too, in the acts and 
 events of childhood, the springs of character lie bare ; 
 there they are not enveloped in a network of reasons, 
 which being the products of experience, are known only 
 to the man, but they appear what they are ; they appear 
 as feelings and motives derived from feelings. Whoever 
 gives us the introspection of his childhood admits us to 
 a far more intimate acquaintance than he who begins 
 only with his manhood. 
 
 In one sense De Quincey's manhood came early, even 
 prematurely. He was a self-conscious, self-dependent, 
 actor in the scene of life, and that from motives which 
 are not common at any age, being of an intellectual and 
 imaginative order, when in the judgment of those about 
 him he was an ordinary child, an ordinary schoolboy. 
 On the other hand, while in one sense he too prematurely 
 became a man, in another sense he never, at any age^ 
 ceased to be a child. His loyalty, his response to kind- 
 ness, his disinterestedness, his intellectual equity, never 
 
 2 A 
 
354 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 left him ; and it was because he would not count on 
 others being different, that he continued a child to the 
 end. Such characters may be led into errors and actions 
 which are deeply blamable, but they are also and in 
 themselves deeply lovable, and their record will be read 
 with gratitude by thousands, for, in a sense truer perhaps 
 and deeper than that in which it can be said of poets, 
 they hold the mirror up to nature. 
 
 It is into a non-worldly atmosphere that De Quincey 
 rises when he is depicting himself : it is into that same 
 atmosphere that he raises others about whom he writes, 
 I mean when he describes them from personal observa- 
 tion. In the future, those whom he thus describes will 
 be immeasurably the gainers ; but in the immediate 
 present, as denizens of the world, actors in every-day 
 life, where, by some one or other, handles of disparage- 
 ment are daily sought against every man, such a 
 description is felt as an unwarranted violation of privacy. 
 A man may violate his own privacy if he chooses ; that 
 of others he has no right to violate. This De Quincey 
 did not always see. He spoke of others as he spoke of 
 himself, freely and openly, occasionally too with a certain 
 recklessness of satirical expression which jars upon the 
 ear, as if the public at large, to whom he spoke, were to 
 a man not only an intelligent but an equitable audience, 
 and would discount what was due to his extravagances. 
 But not one reader in a thousand, of any present 
 audience, can be reckoned on as truly intelligent and 
 equitable. It is only in the future that the voice of the 
 units prevails. To these it is that De Quincey is really 
 speaking, as much when he writes of others as when he 
 writes of himself : and in their judgment it is that those 
 whom he describes will gain from having been described 
 by De Quincey. 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. 355 
 
 Do I then reckon on a long-lived popularity for De 
 Quincey's writings ? I certainly do. And why ? To 
 say it in one word, because of the total absence from 
 them of the sophistry of their period. The sophistry of 
 any period is whatever is written up to the mark of the 
 views and modes of thinking then and there current. 
 These are pre-supposed before the sophistry can succeed. 
 The prevailing tone is caught, and then success is 
 assured. But De Quincey's writings came straight from 
 himself; were not moulded on the tone of the day. 
 How should they have been ; he who being most 
 originally as well as richly endowed, had besides enjoyed 
 in large measure one mode of education not often 
 bestowed, especially in these crowded times, — the educa- 
 tion of solitude, than which there is no microscope in 
 this world more powerful, if the eye can but endure to 
 use it, nor any instrument more effectual for enforcing 
 on the memory and on the will whatever is steadily 
 contemplated through it. Whatever was original, what- 
 ever was peculiar, in De Quincey's organisation, we may 
 be sure was greatly developed and intensified by his 
 escape from school, his four months of lonely wandering 
 over the Welsh hills, and that wandering, perhaps more 
 lonely still, along the "never-ending terraces of Oxford 
 Street." Whatever he wrote was sure to bear the 
 impress of himself, not the impress of the current mode. 
 Right or wrong, feeble or powerful, it was sure to be 
 genuine, an outcome of the writer, not a reflex of the 
 public. 
 
 Yet De Quincey was no seeker of solitude in order 
 to escape from society, as a cynic or a misanthrope. 
 Perhaps there never was a nature that more imperatively 
 needed society. His interests were all of the quicquid 
 agunt homines type, from "grandeurs that measured 
 
 2 A 2 
 
3S6 THOMAS DE QUINCEY : 
 
 themselves against centuries," or the majesty of the 
 " Consul Romanus," down to the most trivial anecdote, 
 the nursery rhyme, or the nursery superstition. He was 
 a born Conservative, if I may use the expression, a 
 Conservative by natural constitution, just such a Con- 
 servative as Pindar the Greek Lyrist was, having eyes to 
 see and admire whatever of great or good was already 
 achieved, birth, wealth, courage, culture, nobility in all 
 its shapes ;, but without that sense, which is the keynote 
 of Liberalism, of a burden and a task imposed on all 
 men of striving for a common far-oif goal, of aiding in 
 an arduous development, of realising a hardly to be 
 gained ideal, in the elevation of mankind as a whole. 
 History was to him a series of scenes, not a continuous 
 progress in which the present generation has a practical 
 part to play. 
 
 His own mind, too, is stationary ; there is no growth, 
 no enlargement, of his intellectual basis, as he advances 
 in life. He speaks in his later essays from the same 
 platform of ideas as in his earlier ones ; it is only the 
 occasion, the application, that is different. He has 
 acquired much, but he has learnt little. His style on 
 the other hand, when he applies himself in good earnest, 
 becomes more perfect, and possibly, too, his artistic 
 power of exposition. At least both are at their best in 
 the enlarged edition of the ' Confessions,' published three 
 years before his death. Comparing this, either in single 
 passages or as a whole, with the brief and rapidly 
 written first edition, its superiority is unmistakable. He 
 lived to make a perfect work of art out of that sketch, 
 with which his literary career may be said to have 
 begun, and in which the basis of his reputation was 
 laid. 
 
 These are points which it is essential to remark, in 
 
HIS FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES. $$7 
 
 endeavouring to form a just estimate of De Quincey as 
 a man of letters. Here is the weak side of his mind, 
 here the darkness and narrowness, so at least it seems to 
 me, of the otherwise large and luminous grasp of his 
 intellect Fragmentary indeed it was not ; but it seems 
 as if one whole aspect of human affairs, all that is 
 summed up in the idea of Progress subject to laws which 
 science can discover, was to him a blank. The nexus of 
 individuals with one another, of class with class, and the 
 secret but profound relations which connect man with 
 an unseen world, — these were familiar ideas to him ; but: 
 the nexus between earlier and later generations, between, 
 earlier and later races, in order of time, was an idea whicb 
 he had not grasped, or at least full significance of which 
 he had not realised. 
 
 Nor would I be thought blind to the defects which 
 sometimes disfigure his style, the instances here and 
 there of misplaced colloquialism, jokes not worth making,, 
 repetitions of himself, repetitions of favourite quotations, 
 which are obvious on the surface. In fact, the necessity 
 of writing on the spur of the moment, and for different 
 audiences, tempted him to ride with too loose a rein, and 
 to repeat too often what, being no more than a groove of 
 his thought, the household furniture of his mind, should 
 strictly have been said but once, if even that. All this 
 comes out but too conspicuously, when scattered essays 
 are assembled in republication. 
 
 But why do I bring forward all these deficiencies ? 
 To mention them is necessary, in order to a just estima- 
 tion of his powers ; but it would be superfluous to dwell 
 on them, so long as justice is not done to his peculiar 
 merits. Men, and therefore their works when taken as a 
 whole, which is equivalent, are to be judged primarily, 
 not like chains of argument by their weakest parts, but 
 
35^ • THOMAS UE quincey: 
 
 like poems or pictures by their strongest. Appreciate 
 these first ; then count and weigh the defects. The 
 defects can only be understood by first knowing the aim 
 of the writer and the methods which he takes to realise it. 
 The rule is different for separate works, when these belong 
 to the literature of knowledge ; for there, the aim and 
 method being known, a standard for the defects is at 
 hand. But in judging men, in judging their works as a 
 whole, and in judging works of the power literature even 
 separately, to judge by the weakest parts is not only an 
 injustice, it is a fatal blunder in criticism. 
 
 Apart from 'some brilliant exceptions, such for instance 
 as the admirable critique in the New Quarterly Maga- 
 zine for July 1875, the want of appreciation shown 
 towards De Quincey by his literary countrymen is 
 remarkable. It seems as if we sometimes do our think- 
 ing by deputy, wilfully put our eyes in our pockets and 
 try spectacles instead. A man of great originality 
 necessarily stands much more alone than men of more 
 ordinary powers ; he has to dispense with one whole 
 stratum, so to speak, from which the water-supply of 
 genial appreciation should be derived. Critics in the 
 mass naturally, and quite excusably, praise ability and 
 success in doing that which they themselves are 
 attempting to do. Not only do they understand it 
 better, not only do they find it easier to explain to the 
 public, but they have this direct, though unconsciously 
 operating, interest in doing so, that they are enforcing 
 principles of criticism which, in case of their own success, 
 will redound to their benefit. They praise what they 
 admire, what they would like to imitate. The original 
 writer, differing much from his critics, is apt to get scant 
 justice from them, unless his merits lie very much on the 
 surface, and his faults be tolerably withdrawn from 
 
HIS FRIENDS ANP ASSOCIATES. 359 
 
 observation. Where the reverse is the case, merits, 
 however great, will pass unnoticed, for it is no one's 
 business to unearth them. That De Quincey's writings 
 should, in spite of this, have won and hitherto kept a 
 high place in popular estimation iia circumstance which 
 augurs well for their obtaining in the end a more solid 
 and lasting renown. 
 
( 36o ) 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abercrombie, Sir Ralph, i68. 
 
 Absence of mind, 41. 
 
 Addington, Riley, 76. 
 
 "Adonais" (Shelley's), De Quincey's opinion of Keats' critique 
 
 on, 90. 
 JEihon, 210. 
 Aion, 295. 
 
 Allan, Sir William, 48. 
 Altamount, Lord, 16. 
 
 , letters from, 19, 22, 23, 32. 
 
 Ancestors, De Quincey's, 269-292. 
 
 Anecdotes by De Quincey's daughters, 63. 
 
 Ann, of Oxford Street, 36. 
 
 . Dr. Garnett's observations on De Musset's French 
 
 version of the " Confessions," and his interpolation concerning 
 
 "Poor Ann," 215. 
 
 -, General Haxaley's j'eu (P esprit, strictures on, 215. 
 
 Appendix (Findlay's Recollections), 165-167. 
 
 Baird Smith. See Smith. 
 
 " Baker, The " (" Murder considered as One of the Fine Arts "), 
 
 magical influence of, 183. 
 Begbie, Dr. Warburton, 69. 
 Belgrave, Lord, 31. 
 Belzonij 152. 
 
 Benignity of Dickens, 194. 
 
 Bertram, James G., description of De Quincey, 57, 
 Best, Mrs., of Everton, 37. 
 Birth, date of, 3. 
 Birthplace, 3. 
 
 Blackwood!s Magazine, contributions to, 50, 
 Bloomfield, 84. 
 Bohn, H. G., 53. 
 " Book a Bosomes," 280 n. 
 " Book Hunter, The," 58. 
 
 , extract from (" Thomas Papaverius "), 250. 
 
 Brown, or Brunell, of Greek Street, 34. 
 
INDEX. 361 
 
 Brown, Colin, Rae-, 61. 
 
 ■ , personal recollections, 1 1 1. 
 
 , Dr. James, of Paisley, 58. 
 
 , John, 123. 
 
 Bruce, Robert, confiscation of the De Quincey estates and gift of 
 
 same to the Seton family, 292. 
 Brunell, 34, 
 
 Brushing manuscripts, 176. 
 Bug, The Uneducated, 181. 
 Burke, Sergeant, 204. 
 
 Burns, Robert, De Quincey's opinion of, 97. 
 Burton, John Hill, LL.D., the historian, 58, 123, 124, 250. 
 Bust of De Quincey, 164. 
 
 " Caerbarrin," 277, 283 n. 
 
 Cagots of Spain and France, De Quincey's interest in the, 174. 
 
 " Caledonia," Chalmer's, 277, 284 n. 
 
 Campbell, John, village shoemaker, 63. 
 
 Carberry, Lady, 11, 277, 283 n. 
 
 Carlyle, 56. 
 
 and De Quincey, 262. 
 
 , his portrait, 188. 
 
 , De Quincey's message to, 189. 
 
 , description of De Quincey, 240. 
 
 , Mrs., kindness, 187. 
 
 , visit to, at Chelsea, 189. 
 
 Carlyle's reference to himself as "the old monster," 191. 
 
 Carlyles, the, 187. 
 
 Carruthers, of Inverness, 159. 
 
 Chalmers's " Caledonia," 277, 284 n. 
 
 Chambers Robert, 69. 
 
 Characteristics, personal, 171. 
 
 Childhood, 3. 
 
 Children, Wordsworth's, 45 , 86. 
 
 Clare, 91. 
 
 Clare Market, 199. 
 
 Clark, W. G., 238. 
 
 Classical proficiency, 6. 
 
 Clowes, Rev. John, 27. 
 
 Cockbum, Lord, 137. 
 
 Coleridge and De Quincey, 45. 
 
 , consumption of laudanum, 83. 
 
 , conversational powers, 128. 
 
 , friendship with De Quincey, 45. 
 
 , Madame de Stael on, 221. 
 
 , study of, 41. 
 
 , de Quincey's generosity to, 45. 
 
 Colquhoun, Ludovic, 144. 
 
362 JNDEX. 
 
 " Collected Works, The," commencement and progress of, 65-69. 
 
 College days, 97. , 
 
 " Commonplace" people, objection to, 236. 
 
 " Confessions, The," dispute as to copyright of, 202. 
 
 , Alfred de Mussel's French version of, 214. 
 
 • , origin of, 53. 
 
 , the story of, 201. 
 
 , where they were written, 53, 199. 
 
 Conversational powers, 49, 74, 127. 
 
 , Coleridge's, 128. 
 
 , Macaulay's, 128. 
 
 , De Quincey on his own, 82 «. 
 
 Conyngham, Countess of, 17. 
 
 Coplestone, 86. 
 
 Copyright, important question of, 202. . 
 
 Cottle, Joseph, 45. 
 
 Cotton, Dr., 107. 
 
 , on the Oxford life, 107. 
 
 Cousland-dean, 290 n. 
 Crabbe, 92. 
 Craig, Isa, 159. 
 
 , Robert, 62, 124. ' 
 
 Crowe, Mrs., authoress of " The Night Side of Nature," 55, 153, 228. 
 
 , De Quincey's admiration for, as a writer, 153. 
 
 Cunningham, 84. 
 
 " Daily Mail, The," 60. 
 
 Dalcaeth, 281 n. 
 
 Darling, 83. 
 
 Davey, S. J., original letters formerly in possession of, 21 1-2 13. 
 
 Dawn of the century, Wordsworth and Coleridge, 320. 
 
 Death, 69. 
 
 bed, De Quincey's, 163. 
 
 Dell, 34. 
 
 " Delta" (Dr. D.M. Moir, author of" De Quincey's Revenge,") 267. 
 
 De Musset, Alfred. See under " M." 
 
 De Quincey. See under " Q." 
 
 Description of De Quincey by Colin Rae-Brown, 113. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, 240. 
 
 J. R. Findlay, 125. 
 
 R. P. Gillies, 240. 
 
 James Hogg, 171. 
 
 Thomas Hood, 239. 
 
 Rev. Francis Jacox, 219. 
 
 ^. James Payn, 62. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, 125. 
 
 Mrs. Baird Smith, 216. 
 
 Richard Woodhouse, 71, , 
 
rNDEx. 363 
 
 Devotion, wifely, 51. . 
 Dickens, Charles, 225. 
 
 , the " benignity " of, 194. 
 
 Dobell, Sydney, 148. 
 
 " Doctrine of Future Punishment, The," 393. 
 
 Dora Wordsworth (Mrs. Quillinan), 233. 
 
 Dove Cottage, 45. 
 
 Dressing, mode of, 129, 130. 
 
 Dublin, arrival at, 17. 
 
 Duddingstone, residence atj 56. 
 
 Dumfermline> Lord, i68. 
 
 Edgeworth, Maria, 225. 
 
 , De Quincey's opinion of, 225. 
 
 Eloquence, 175. 
 
 " Evelyn's Memoirs," 91. 
 
 " Excursion, The," Wordsworth's allusion to, 43. 
 
 Facsimile of letters in De Quincey's handwriting, 206-209. 
 
 Falsyde Castle, 273 n. 
 
 Family, De Quincey's, and descent, 70, 269-292. 
 
 Faucit, Helen (Lady Martin), 228. 
 
 Ferrier, De Quincey's testimonial on behalf of, as a candidate for 
 
 the Chair of Moral Philosophy, 155. ■ 
 Fields, James T., 62, 230. 
 Findlay, John Ritchie (of the Scotsman), 68. 
 
 ■ , personal recollections, 122. 
 
 , Appendix, 165-167. 
 
 " First Scottish Daily," ill. 
 
 Florence de Quincey. See Mrs. Baird Smith. 
 
 French literature, De Quincey on, 96. 
 
 Friends and Associates, i. 
 
 " Friend, The," composition of, 47. 
 
 Funerals, de Quincey at, 64. 
 
 Garnett, Dr. Richard, of the British Museum (editor of " The 
 Confessions,") (^Parchment Library Edilion), 54. 
 
 , observations by, on De Mussel's French version of 
 
 " The Confessions," and his interpolation concerning " Poor 
 Ann," 214. 
 
 Garter Machine, Kant's, 177. 
 
 Genius of De Quincey, H. Shadworth Hodgson, LL.D., on the, 314. 
 
 German, commencement of the study of, 34, 41. 
 
 " German's Tale, The," by Harriet Lee, De Quincey's praise of, 224; 
 
 Gibson, 85. . 
 
 Gift to Coleridge, 45. 
 
 Gilbert, Ashurst, (Bishop of Chichester), 25. 
 
 Gillies, R. P., 48, 224. 
 
3^4 INDEX. 
 
 Gillies, R. P, description of De Quincey, 240. 
 
 Gillman, 225. 
 
 " Gimlet eye," the sun's, 212. 
 
 Gladstone, William Ewart, 231. 
 
 Glasgow, date of return to, iii. 
 
 peiriod, recollections of the, iii. 
 
 , residence at, 60. 
 
 Goethe, de Quincey's opinion of, 144. 
 Goodenough, Dr., 44. 
 
 , Latin theme from his papers, 104. 
 
 Gordon, Mrs., extract from " Memoir of Wilson," 245. 
 Grace, Rev. Thomas, 16. 
 Grasmere friends, 49. 
 
 , invitation to, 40. 
 
 Greek, proficiency in, 6. 
 
 Greenheys, 3. 
 
 Grinfield, Edward, at Oxford, 41. 
 
 , farewell letter from, 69. 
 
 , Tom and Edward, 13. 
 
 Guardian, De Quincey's, 4. 
 " Guildford Arms, The," 247. 
 " Guisers," 132. 
 
 Halkett, Samuel, 204. 
 Hall, Rev. S., 4- 
 
 , letter from, 37. 
 
 Hamilton, Captain Thomas (" Cyril Thornton "), 48. 
 
 , Sir William, 48, 224. 
 
 Hamley's, General, /«« d'' esprit, 215. 
 
 — , strictures on, 215. 
 
 Handwriting, De Quincey's, 240. 
 
 , Facsimile of, 206-209. 
 
 Hanna, Dr., 231. 
 Haren, Dr. de, 33. 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 197. 
 
 , " Mosses from an Old Manse," 234. 
 
 . " Scarlet letter," 234. 
 
 Hessey (Taylor and Hessey), 52. 
 
 History of England, De Quincey's projected, 67, 233. 
 
 Hodgson, Shadworth H., LL.D., on the Genius of De Quincey, 314. 
 
 Hogg, James, description of De Quincey, 171. 
 
 , first interview with De Quincey, 64, 
 
 ■ jun., 64. 
 
 , personal recollections, 169. 
 
 , sen., 64. 
 
 -, and Sons, business relations and friendship with, 64. 
 
 -, John, 56. 
 
 -, the Ettrick Shepherd, 84, 
 
INDEX. 365 
 
 " Hogg's Instructor," 64, 248. 
 
 , contributions to, 65. 
 
 Holyrood, residence at, 56. 
 
 , visit to Solicitor from, and the consequences, 57. 
 
 Sanctuary, 56. 
 
 Hood, Tliomas, 53. 
 
 , description of De Quincey, 239. 
 
 , description of a visit to De Quincey at York 
 
 Street, 53. 
 Horace, translation of Ode 22, Lib. I., 13. 
 Hunt, Leigh, 13. 
 
 " Instructor, Hogg's," 64, 248. 
 
 , De Quincey's contributions to, 65. 
 
 Ireland, visit to, 16. 
 Irving, Edward, 226. 
 Issue, De Quincey's, 70. 
 
 " Jacobin, A bit of a," 233. 
 Jacox, Rev. Francis, 62. 
 
 , personal recollections, 219. 
 
 Joan of Arc, 249. 
 
 Johnston, Rev. George, D.D., 190. 
 
 Jones, Sir William, 84. 
 
 Kant and his garter machine, 177. 
 Keats, 90. 
 
 , critique on Shelley's " Adonais," De Quincey's opinion of, 90. 
 
 Keith's " Scottish Bishops," 284 n. 
 Kelsall, 38. 
 Knight, Charles, 54. 
 
 , De Quincey's droll plight, 58, 244. 
 
 , " Passages of a Working Life," extract from, 242. 
 
 Knox, Mrs., 159. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 71, 87. 
 
 , allusions to " The Confessions," 88. 
 
 -, friendship, with, 44. 
 
 , joke about the Hock, 88. 
 
 . De Quincey's opinion of, 153.. 
 
 Lantern, De Quincey's, 179. 
 
 Lasswade, residence at, 59. 
 
 Latin, proficiency in, 6. 
 
 Latin theme, 104. 
 
 Laudanum, Coleridge's consumption of, 83. 
 
 . , De Quincey's consumption of, 83. 
 
 Law studies, 44. 
 
366 INDEX. 
 
 " Leader, The," 232. 
 Lee, Harriet, 224. 
 
 , Dr. Robert. 141, 157. 
 
 Lepers, De Quincey's interest in, 174. 
 
 Letter to Florence in Ireland, 166. 
 
 to his daughters in Ireland, extract from, as to a visit to 
 
 Mr. Ritchie, 167. 
 Letters, humorous, concerning a press query, and the sun's 
 
 " gimlet " eye," 211, 212. 
 
 to Hessey, 211-213. 
 
 , replying to invitations, 155, 158, 159, 161. . 
 
 to a young man whose education has been neglected, "Jl, 95. 
 
 — ■, unpublished, " Confessions" period, 214. 
 
 , facsimiles of, in De Quincey's handwriting, 
 
 206-209. 
 Lewes, G. H., 232. 
 " Life and Writings of De Quincey," by H. A. Page (A. H. Japp, 
 
 LL.D.), 314. 
 Literary Gazette, 90. 
 " Literary Recollections," extract from (James Payn), 235. 
 
 " Reminiscences," extract from (Thomas Hood), 239. 
 
 Literature of power and literature of knowledge. Dr. Sbadworth 
 
 Hodgson's division of De Quincey's works, 330, 332. 
 Lloyd, friendship with, 47, 78. 
 Lockhart, 48. 
 
 Lodgings in London, 34, 53. 
 London Magazine, The, contributions to, 52. 
 London novitiate, 34. 
 Lothian Street, No. 42. .60. 
 Loutherbourg, Mrs., R. A., 6. 
 " Loveliest Sight for Women's Eyes, The," 51. 
 Lowther interest in the Westmoreland Gazette, 75, 82. 
 Lushington, Professor, 66. 
 
 Macaulay's conversational powers, 128. 
 Manuscripts, disorder of and brush for, 67, 175. 
 Margaret, Jo, 59. 
 Marriage, 50. 
 
 , of De Quincey's daughters, 62, 124. 
 
 Martin, Sir Theodore, 228. 
 Martineau, Miss, 230. 
 Massey, Lord, 31. 
 Maturin, 225. 
 Maurice, Professor, 231. 
 " Memoirs, The," 56. 
 
 , Evelyn's," 91. 
 
 of a Literary Veteran " (R. P. Gillies,) extract from, 242, 
 
 of Wilson," (Mrs. Gordon,) extract from, 245. 
 
INDEX. 36;!: 
 
 " Memoirs, some, of Books, Authors, and Events." J. G. Bertram, 
 
 246. 
 Memories, a daughter's, (Mrs. Baird Smith — Florence de Quincey) 
 
 216. 
 Middle Temple, De Quincey as a student at, 44, 76, 
 Millar, 99. 
 
 Miller, Miss Jessie, 56. 
 Milton, John, De Quincey's estimate of, 8$. 
 Mitford, Mary Russell, 63, 235. 
 Mode of dressing, 129-130. 
 Moir, Dr. D. M., (" Delta ") " De Quincey's Revenge," a ballad, 
 
 267. 
 " Monologue, The," 221. 
 Moonlight Rambles, 178. 
 "Moore's Byron," 154. 
 More, Hannah, 153. 
 Morgan, Mr., De Quincey's schoolmaster at Bath, 6. 
 
 , Lady, 225. 
 
 Morgan's School at Bath, 6, 72. 
 
 " Mosses from an old Manse," Hawthorne's, 234. 
 
 Mother, De Quincey's, 7. 
 
 Murray, 79, 81. 
 
 Music, love of, 55, 227. 
 
 Musset, Alfred de. Dr. Garnett's observations on his French version 
 
 ol " The Confessions," 215. 
 
 Nebular hypothesis, 1 17. 
 Newbottle Abbey, 278 «. 
 
 , parish of, 277, 279 fi. 
 
 New Quarterly Magazine, The, contributions to, 54, 
 
 Nichol, J. P., Professor of Astronomy, 60, 117. 
 
 Nickname, Wilson's, for De Quincey, 47. 
 
 North British Daily Mail, iii. 
 
 North, Christopher. See Professor Wilson. 
 
 , and his portrait, 195. 
 
 "Notes of Conversations with De Quincey," by Richard Wood- 
 house, 71. 
 
 " Old man eloquent," 221. 
 Oliver, Edmund, 78. 
 Opium, first taste of, 44. 
 
 , De Quincey on, 180. 
 
 , substitution of tobacco for, 87. 
 
 wrestles, 212, 213. 
 
 Oxford days, a souvenir of, 104. 
 , De Quincey's life at, 41, 97. 
 
368 INDEX. 
 
 Page, H. A. (A. H. Japp, LL.D.), 314. 
 
 "Papaverius, Thomas," 58, 125, 250. 
 
 Papers, recovery of, 136. 
 
 Parody on " The Confessions " (General Hamley), strictures on, 215. 
 
 " Passages of a Working Life," extract from, 242. 
 
 " Patron," De Quincey's interpretation of the term, 79. 
 
 Payn, James, 62. 
 
 , reminiscences, 235. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 1 10. 
 
 Penson, General, 32. 
 
 Percivai, 83. 
 
 Philomelas, De Quincey compared to the bard in Thomson's 
 
 " Castle of Indolence," 317. 
 Physical tortures, Ji, 196, 222. 
 " Pink," 6, 8. 
 
 , return of, 45. 
 
 Platoif, General, 125. 
 
 Poetry, on reading, 76. 
 
 Poole, of Nether-Stowey, 45. 
 
 " Poor Ann ! " — General Hamley's jeu ^esprit and Alfred de 
 
 Musset's French version, 214. 
 Prescription, a successful, 197. 
 Priory, the, Chester, 29. 
 Public, the Reading, the Thinking, and the Learned, 324. 
 
 "QuiLLiNAN, Mrs. (Dora Wordsworth), 233. 
 Quincey, De, a free-will determinist, 335. 
 
 , and Carlyle, 262. 
 
 — , as a practical man, 1 86. 
 
 , at Charles Knight's house, 244. 
 
 , at Professor Wilson's house, 245. 
 
 , conversational powers, 49, 74, 82, 1 27. ' 
 
 , description of, by Colin Rae-Brown, 113. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, 240. 
 
 J. R. Findlay, 125. 
 
 R. P. Gillies, 240. 
 
 James Hogg, 171. 
 
 Thomas Hood, 239. 
 
 — Rev. Francis Jacox, 219. 
 
 James Payn, 235. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, 125. 
 
 Mrs. Baird Smith, 216. 
 
 Richard Woodhouse, 71. 
 
 , estates, confiscation of, 292. 
 
 , Florence (Mrs. Baird Smith), 195. 
 
 , grave of, 69. 
 
 , his " Life and Writings," by H. A. Page (A. H. Japp, 
 
 LL.D.), 314 
 
INDEX. 369 
 
 Quincey, De, his style, 349-352- 
 
 theory about genius, 322. 
 
 , Shadworth H. Hodgson, LL.D., on the genius of, 314. 
 
 , humour, movement of, 345. 
 
 - key to the comprehension of- his place in literature, 
 
 3i8. 
 
 -, landladies, 67, 114, 159, 172. 
 -, message to Carlyle, 189. 
 -, Mrs., death of, 59. 
 -, mother of, 7. 
 
 , death of, 59. 
 
 -, on " The Doctrine of Future Punishment," 293. 
 
 , on "The- Supposed Scriptural Expression for Eter- 
 nity," 299. 
 
 , particularity as to spelling his name, 226. 
 
 , Robert, 269 n. 
 
 , Roger, Earl of Winton, 285 «. 
 
 -, Seyer, 283, 291 n. 
 
 " Quincey's, de. Revenge," by " Delta " (Dr. D. M. Moir), 267* 
 
 Rae-Brown, Colin. See Brown. 
 Recollections. See also Reminiscences. 
 
 , Personal, by Colin Rae-Brown, ni. 
 
 John Ritchie Findlay, 122. 
 
 R. P. Gillies, 240. 
 
 James Hogg, 169. 
 
 ■ Rev. Francis Jacox, 219. 
 
 - James Payn, 235. 
 
 Reconciliation, a, 37. 
 
 ''Record, The," 22,2. 
 
 Religious Opinions, 231. 
 
 Remenyi, 185. 
 
 Reminiscences. See also Recollections. 
 
 , extract from Carlyle, 240. 
 
 , Mrs. Baird Smith's, 216. 
 
 "Reminiscences, Literary," extracts from (Thomas Hood), 239 
 240, 242. 
 
 Renfield St., No, 74, 60. 
 
 Rephes to invitations, 155, 158, 159, 161. 
 
 " Restoration of National Prosperity, the," shown to be immedi- 
 ately practicable, 77 n. 
 
 " Revenge, De Quincey's," a ballad, by "Delta" (Dr. D, M. Moir), 
 267. 
 
 "Revolt of Islam " (Shelley's), 90. 
 
 Reynolds, 83. 
 
 Rice, 87. 
 
 Ripon, Lord, nickname for, 160. 
 
 Ritchie, John, of the Scotsman, 68, 140. 
 
 2 B 
 
370 .INDEX. 
 
 Ritchie, Leitch, 148. 
 
 " Robert the Rhymer," 221. 
 
 Robertson, Rev. Dr., of Irvine, 58. 
 
 Roslin Castle, 277 n. 
 
 Russel, Alexander, 123. 
 
 St. John, Augustus, 148. 
 
 , and Sydney DobeU, 148. 
 
 , Percy, 117. 
 
 , De Quincey on the pronunciation of, 117. 
 
 St. Leger, Barry, 243. 
 
 Sanctuary, 56. 
 
 " Satires of Mac-Flecknoe," by Dryden, 96. 
 
 " Scarlet Letter, The " (Hawthorne's), 234. 
 
 School life, 5. 
 
 , running away from, 32. 
 
 Schwartzburg, 41, 108. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 72. 
 
 Scotsman, The, De Quincey's admiration of, 131. 
 
 "Scottish Bishops" (Keith's), 284 «. 
 
 " Selections Grave and Gay," 65, 201. 
 
 Sensations of suffering, 196. 
 
 Seton, Adame de, 273 n. 
 
 family, the arms and motto of, 272 n. 
 
 , gift of the De Quincey estates to, 292. 
 
 Shaving, De Quincey on, 145. 
 
 Shelley, De Quincey on, 90. 
 
 Sibbald, Sir Robert, extract from " History of Life," 273 «. 
 
 Siddons, Mrs., 228. 
 
 Simplicity with money, 58, 256. 
 
 Simpson, Margaret, 50. 
 
 , of Grasmere, 50. 
 
 Small-pox, De Quincey's opinion of, 157. 
 Smith, Colonel Baird, 62, 124. 
 
 , record of service, 165. 
 
 -, Mrs. Baird (Florence de Quincey), reminiscences, 21,6. 
 
 Smyth, Professor Piazzi, 148. 
 
 Solicitor, De Quincey's visit to his, from Holyrood, and the conse- 
 quences, 57. 
 
 " Some Memoirs of Books, Authors, and Events," J. G. Bertram, 
 246. 
 
 Southey, 45. 
 
 , De Quincey's opinion of, 153. 
 
 Souvenirs and anecdotes by various friends and Associates, 239. 
 
 " Sphinx's Riddle, The," 170. 
 
 Stael, Madame de, on Coleridge, 221. 
 
 Stark, Miss, De Quincey's attendant at Lothian Street, 67, 159. 
 
 Steell, Sir John, R.S.A., 164. 
 
INDEX. 371 
 
 Stewart at the Comet office, 45. 
 
 — ^-; — , Dugald, De Quincey's opinion of, 75. 
 
 Stirling, J. H., his demolition of a passage on Kant, 337. 
 
 " Story of the Student of St. Bees, The," 237. 
 
 Strauss, 155. 
 
 Stroll, a midnight, 139 «. 
 
 Style, De Quincey's, 349-352. 
 
 " Supposed Scriptural Expression for Eternity, The," De Quincey 
 
 on, 295. 
 Sympathy with the poor, 36, 55, 63, 64. 
 
 Tait, William, as a friend, 55. 
 Tait^s Magazine, contributions to, 55. 
 
 , purchase of, 60. 
 
 Talfourd, Sir Thomas Noon, 52, 87. 
 
 Taylor, John, claim to copyright of " The Confessions," 201. 
 
 , letters to, 203. 
 
 and Hessey (proprietors of the London Magastne), 52. 
 
 Testimonial to Ferrier as a candidate for the Chair of Moral 
 
 Philosophy, 155. 
 Thackeray, 68, 158, 225. 
 
 ■ and Dickens, De Quincey's feeling concerning, 192. 
 
 " Thornton, Cyril " (Capt. Thomas Hamilton), 48. 
 
 Thuggism, De Quincey's interest in, 174. 
 
 "Titan," 65. 
 
 Tobacco -v. Opium, 87. 
 
 Tosh, Mrs., De Quincey's attendant at Glasgow, 1 14. 
 
 Tortoise, an ancient, 309. 
 
 Troup, George, 60. 
 
 Truth in anecdotes, 89. 
 
 Unpublished letters, 207, 209, 214. 
 
 Vernor, 84. 
 
 and Hood, failure of, 84. 
 
 Violin, passion for, 185. 
 
 Wainwright, 87. 
 
 Walking powers, 130. 
 
 " Walladmor," De Quincey's translation of, 233. 
 
 Wanderings in Wales, 32. 
 
 " Warehouse Stories," 247. 
 
 Westmoreland Gazette, contributions to and editorship of, 50. 
 
 Westmoreland, residence in, 45. 
 
 Westport, Lord, 6, 18. 
 
 " What would the baker say ? " 183. 
 
 Whately, Archbishop, 226. 
 
372 INDEX. 
 
 Whitworth, Rev. W. H., 219. 
 
 " Wider Hope, The " (James Hogg, the younger), 293. 
 
 Wife, De Quincey's, 50. 
 
 , death of, 59. 
 
 " Wilheltn Meister," Wordsworth reading, 144. 
 Wilkie, 85. 
 
 Wilson, Professor ("Christopher North"), 41, 151, 195, 245. 
 • and Quillinan, 151. 
 
 -, Mrs., 67. 
 
 -, De Quincey's introduction to, 46. 
 
 Wilton, de. Lord Grey, 17. 
 
 Winkfield School, 12. 
 
 Winton (Winchester), Seyer de Quincey, Earl of, 285 «. 
 
 Woodhouse, Richard, 35, 54. 
 
 , description of first meeting with De Quincey, 
 
 72. 
 
 , notes of conversations with De Quincey, 71. 
 
 Worcester College, Oxford, entering of, 40. 
 , Dr. Cotton, Provost of (reminiscences 
 
 given in Quarterly Review), 107. 
 Wordsworth's children, De Quincey's friendship with, 45. 
 presentiment as to the death 
 
 of one, 86. 
 
 , De Quincey's first meeting with, 45. 
 
 defence of, 71, Ti, 92. 
 
 ■description of, 152. 
 
 -, Dorothy, 45. 
 
 -, letter from, on life at college, 43. 
 
 - reply to De Quincey's letter on the " Lyrical Ballads," 
 
 -, study of, 41. 
 
 York Street, life at, 53, 199. 
 
 , " Confessions, The,'' written at, 53, 199. 
 
 40. 
 
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 stamford street and charing cross.