marily to his use of opium, but subordinately to that affection of the liver which he thinks stimulated his indulgence in a pleasure originally discovered by accident. It was in 1804, when on a visit to London in vacation time, that he first took opium for the toothache. That he afterwards continued it for the mere pleasure which it afforded him he does not deny; for the sake of having 'his moral affections in a state of cloudless serenity, and high over all the great light of the majestic intellect.' It was not till the year 1817 that he began to take the drug in quantities which produced his dreams, though he acknowledges that for eight out of the previous thirteen years his use of it had amounted to an abuse. At length his nightly visions became so insupportable that he determined to overcome the habit. After a desperate struggle he did at length triumph; but long after the indulgence was renounced the peculiar effects continued.

'One memorial of my former condition nevertheless remains; my dreams are not calm: the dread swell and agitation of the storm have not wholly subsided; the legions that encamped in them are drawing off, but not departed; my sleep is still tumultuous; and like the gates of Paradise to our first parents when looking back from afar, it is still (in the tremendous line of Milton)

"With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.'

Although these particular consequences disappeared, it is probable that De Quincey's mind never wholly recovered from the effects of his eighteen years' indulgence. He himself says, half jocularly, but apparently quite truly, that it is characteristic of the opium-eater never to finish anything. He himself never finished anything, except his sentences, which are models of elaborate workmanship. But many of his essays are literally fragments, while those which are not generally convey the impression of being mere prolegomena to some far greater work of which he had formed the conception only. Throughout his volumes, moreover, we find allusions to writings which have never seen the daylight. And finally, there is 'The Great Unfinished,' the 'De Emendatione Humani Intellectûs,' to which he had at one time devoted the labour of his whole life. It is in fact the one half-melancholy reflection which his career suggests, that a man so capable as he was of exercising a powerful influence for good upon the political and religious thought of the present age, should have comparatively wasted his opportunities, and left us his most precious ideas in the condition of the Sibyl's leaves after they had been scattered by the wind. Hence those who approach him with any serious purpose are only too likely to come away disappointed. It is therefore rather on his style, at once complex

and

and harmonious, at once powerful and polished, than on the substance of his works, that his posthumous fame will be dependent. The extraordinary compass and unique beauty of his diction, accommodating itself without an effort to the highest flights of imagination, to the minutest subtleties of reasoning, and to the gayest vagaries of humour, are by themselves indeed a sure pledge of a long if not undying reputation. Yet the profundity of separate remarks, opening to us for the moment entirely new views of the most important subjects, combined with the evident conscientiousness with which his volumes teem, make us still look wistfully at the glittering fragments, and long to ascertain if they cannot be made to yield a theory. Like one who is ascending a lofty eminence thickly clothed with wood, and feels sure from occasional intervals that a glorious prospect lies beneath him, could he only obtain a clear view from some commanding point; so in reading the works of this extraordinary man we are for ever expecting new and splendid results to burst upon us at the end of each discourse, and each time are obliged to content ourselves with the hope that they lie a little further on. We will endeavour, therefore, to lay briefly before our readers the various fields of thought which De Quincey traverses, satisfied that they cannot follow in his footsteps without gain of some sort, whether in the shape of mere amusement, of valuable suggestions, or familiarity with exact logic. De Quincey has classified his own works under the three heads of amusing, didactic, and imaginative. To us, however, the title chosen by the publisher seems to offer a more convenient division. By separating his writings into 'grave and gay,' we arrive more easily at the prominent characteristics of his mind, at the same time that we shall be able to get an equally clear conception of what he has accomplished in literature. The majority of his serious works may be brought under the three heads of religious, historical, and critical. There are many, however, which reject this classification, and to those we suppose we must assign the title of miscellaneous; and here we may take the opportunity of saying that it is not everything which is included within these fourteen volumes that was worth reprinting. De Quincey, indeed, never wrote nonsense. But his love of mere composition, which must have been very strong in one who composed so variously and so admirably, has led him on many occasions into dissertations of unnecessary length, while the seclusion in which he lived would now and then cause him to attach rather too much importance to his own impressions, reminiscences, and emotions. For these reasons we think the 'Selections' might be made a good deal more select with great advantage to the public and gain to De Quincey's reputation;

putation; while, if any competent gentleman would undertake the task of rearranging and indexing them, so as to bring closer together all that relates to the same subject, and give us a chance of referring to particular passages without a three days' search, a still further benefit would be conferred upon both author and reader.

Of the essays which we style religious the general tone is that of a moderate High Churchman, but of one, nevertheless, who in any theological controversy would choose to take his own ground. With the evangelical clergyman of the period it was not in his nature to sympathise. Both the doctrines and the manners of that school were repulsive to him. But he seems to have been perfectly indifferent to many points which in the Anglo-Catholic theory are essentials. Episcopacy he upheld because it was practically the best form of Church government for England. Of baptismal regeneration he thought so little that he actually had a dispute with Wordsworth as to whether it was the doctrine of the English Church or not. Nor was he convinced until Dr. Christopher Wordsworth the elder, whom they appointed arbiter, assured him there could be no doubt about the matter. Even then, however, he fidgeted under the burden of the discovery, and prophesied that before long that very question would agitate the Church of England to the centre; a prediction verified afterwards by the now halfforgotten Mr. Gorham. On the question of inspiration his views were in accordance with the most advanced English Churchmen of the present day. He seems to have thought there was a good deal in Newman's theory of development, not as tending to favour Romanism, but as helping to harmonize Scripture with modern thought. He appears to mean that concurrently with the progress of mankind both in knowledge and civilization will the truths of the Bible become clearer; and he instances the difference of our own interpretation of Scripture texts upon witchcraft and slavery from that of former generations. If we ever thought that Scripture enjoined us to burn or drown any poor old woman against whom her neighbours had a grudge, or that it sanctioned the sale and purchase of human beings and their consequent treatment like beasts, why may we not be under equal delusion upon certain other points now? But the successive disappearance of errors before the gradual advance of truth is development; and De Quincey accordingly believed that more of it was probably in store for us.

In all the cardinal doctrines of Christianity De Quincey was a steadfast believer. His reply to Hume upon miracles, though very short and perhaps very little known, well deserves the attention of Vol. 110.-No. 219.

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students of divinity. His vindication of Christianity as a peculiar religion, such that it cannot be regarded either simply as one of a series, or co-ordinate with other equally wide-spread religions, is a masterly performance. He calls attention to the fact that in no other religion but Christianity, and those which are connected with it, is morality recognised as religious. The national worship or cultus has been in all other instances wholly separated from questions of virtue and vice. In Christianity alone is our duty to our neighbour made part of our duty to God. In Judaism this is partially the case; in Mahommedanism less so; but still the influence of a true revelation is to be detected in the one as well as in the other. The originality and subtlety of De Quincey's mind are nowhere more conspicuous than in this essay; and it is worthy of observation that an intellect at once so powerful and so keen as his, and a boldness of inquiry which shrank from no length of investigation, should never have carried its possessor beyond the confines of revelation.

In his historical essays, if equally ingenious, he is perhaps, on the whole, less sound. It is in the region of pure speculation that he is most at home. Those who do not mix much in active life are naturally bad judges of those who do. Our best historians have not been pure students; and in proportion as they approximate to the latter character do they recede from the former. A propensity to extreme opinions and the use of sharply-cut distinctions, which impart a fallacious clearness to his views, are generally characteristic of the closet historian; and such in many respects was De Quincey. There is no doubt a danger upon the other side. Instead of too exclusive a search after principles, we may practically ignore their authority. In our worship of moderation we may lose all reverence for earnestness, enthusiasm, and self-denial. It would be easy to point out examples of either excess without going far back in the list of English historians. But to do so would lead us from our subject; and there is moreover no difficulty whatever in settling the position of De Quincey. Into pure history, however, he has not dipped very deeply. An essay on the Cæsars, another on Cicero, a third on Charlemagne, and a few remarks upon the Stuarts, are all his historical attempts which involve the discussion of opinion. Of historical narratives or sketches he has several, and all of them worthy of his pen. The Greek Revolution' and 'Greece under the Romans' are excellent historic pictures; but they are surpassed in eloquence and power by his Flight of the Kalmuck Tartars' and his 'Joan of Arc,' the former of which may take its place with the Traditions of the Rabbins' and passages of the OpiumEater,'

.

Eater,' among the very finest efforts of his genius. But in the few passages in which he has given us his estimate of great historical personages and events he is, for reasons already stated, less satisfactory. We are inclined, indeed, to go a long way with him in his judgment upon Julius Cæsar; but we utterly dissent from his unfavourable verdict upon Cicero. We are the more surprised at his opinion of this great man, because in his character of Pompey he shows that he had studied the history of Roman parties with considerable attention, and had penetrated to a truth which had escaped the eyes of Dr. Arnold. Pompey no doubt did represent an oligarchical clique which strove to make itself accepted as the legitimate heir of the republicans. Cæsar, on the other hand, would in destroying this clique have done no disservice to the commonwealth. Supposing the contest then to have lain between the democratic despotism of Julius and the spurious aristocracy of his rivals, we believe there was little to choose. So far we travel cheerfully in Mr. De Quincey's company. But there we stop. Had he read Cicero's letters with the attention they deserve, he would have seen, we think, that the statesman had by no means unlimited confidence in the Pompeian party. But there seems reason to believe that he hoped through their agency to keep alive at least the old forms of the Republic, till perhaps at some happier period they might regain their pristine energy. If, on the other hand, they were at once actually suspended, he was prescient enough to see that their sleep would be eternal. That these were the considerations which finally drove Cicero to throw in his lot with a party whom he never trusted, is we think evident from his correspondence. But Mr. De Quincey, not proof against that fascination which power seems to exercise over a certain class of literary minds, is subdued by the spell of Cæsar. What Frederick is to Mr. Carlyle, and our own Henry to Mr. Froude, that is the victor of Pharsalia to Thomas De Quincey. The essay on Charlemagne is to be commended for some excellent remarks on the different modes of writing history, and has also a most interesting but somewhat unfair comparison between Charlemagne and the first Napoleon.

Mixed essays, partly historical, partly philosophical, partly critical, are those on Judas Iscariot, the Essenes, and Secret Societies. Our readers are probably well aware of the leading ideas which they contain. The falling headlong' of Judas is explained as meaning moral ruin, and the gushing out of his bowels as a broken heart. The Essenes are conjectured to have been disguised Christians, an hypothesis supported with even more than the author's usual ingenuity. And all secret societies are said to be impositions actually, though inspired by a deep-seated and venerable human instinct;

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