to exclude the Essays of Pope. But he has left them open; and while the laws of Aristotle are accepted in the one case, and the example of Horace in the other, it will be difficult to prevent our countryman from entering in.

We will not say whether the next and last point that we mean to notice separately can be properly described as a paradox. But we introduce it partly for the sake of its own intrinsic interest-partly because we cannot help more than half suspecting that De Quincey has in this case been guilty of something very like plagiarism. The point we are about to call attention to is an assertion of the similarity between Wordsworth and Euripides, as reformers of the public taste of their respective epochs. Now, we observe in De Quincey's article on Lessing an allusion to Lord Shaftesbury's writings on Taste; and upon turning to his Lordship's works, though not in the same treatise as that mentioned by De Quincey, we find the revival of simplicity in Athens attributed to Euripides and Demosthenes. Whatever, in the mean time, be De Quincey's obligation to Lord Shaftesbury, we believe that the opinion itself is of very doubtful validity. The com

mon characteristic of the two poets,' says De Quincey, 'was that each strove to restore the poetic diction of his own age to the language of common life.' This is just one of that numerous class of generalisations which we admire and distrust at the same time. We admire it for the discovery of a particular coincidence hitherto unsuspected: we distrust it for the general error of which it is apparently the symptom. Both Wordsworth and Euripides rejected much of that professional, or as it were royal diction, which custom had consecrated to the use of poets. But they did not reject it in favour of the same substitute, nor instigated by the same motive. The one aimed at simplicity, the other at popularity; the one protested against the public taste, the other set it up as a standard. Both imitated the language of real life; but in England the language of real life was also the language of nature, while in Athens the language of real life had, if we may credit Aristophanes, become tainted with the jargon of the law courts. It was for pandering to this pernicious taste of his countrymen, for introducing into tragedy the argumentative displays of the dicasteria, that Aristophanes rebukes him: and we can hardly suppose he would have selected these points for attack had they not been to a great extent the causes of the popularity of Euripides. And here, indeed, the fanciful in such matters might draw a closer parallel between him and Wordsworth than is afforded by their verbal innovations only. Euripides, the object of fierce hostility to the Tory Aristophanes, reminds

us

us very strongly of the position of Wordsworth in relation to some of his critics. Both commenced their innovations

at a

period when the political passions of their respective countries were in a state of violent excitement. Departures of the most trifling character from established custom were received as evidences of a revolutionary habit of mind, to which Wordsworth's early political opinions, and the connexion of Euripides with the Sophists and his ambiguous tone regarding the national religion, lent additional colour. Aristophanes accordingly attacks the obnoxious tragedian in the very tone of a witty Church and State reviewer, who hated both his literary and political principles with equal violence. From this point of view, indeed, the parallel is curiously close.

It will be readily understood from all that has gone before that in what are commonly called practical matters De Quincey is not invariably a safe guide. His logic cuts like a razor; his imagination glows like a furnace. But just for this very reason he is an uncertain judge of those prosaic situations and unlogical arguments in and by which so much of the world's business is conducted. To have stood a contested election, or taken part in a parish vestry, would have greatly improved his judgment. And yet he himself saw clearly enough the danger to which we are exposed by ignoring the circumstances under which any given principle may be forced to evolve itself. He perceived this truth, but he did not always act upon it. His mind, in fact, whether by nature or by opium, was traversed by a vein of effeminacy which shrank from the real effort of compromise. We may observe this peculiarity in his disposition to extol Julius Cæsar at the expense of Cicero.

In De Quincey's views of English politics we observe the same want of practical sobriety. He goes much further, for instance, in his admiration of the Puritans than the facts of the case at all warrant. The Long Parliament is with him 'that noble Parliament.' From Wordsworth and Coleridge he had learned to depreciate Mr. Pitt. The French war of '93 he considered inexcusable. In all this we see the mind careless of detail, and satisfied with the contemplation of one or two salient points. But throughout the whole of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, if we except the period which intervened between the death of Queen Anne and the battle of Culloden, there was as much to captivate the imagination upon the one side in politics as the other; and De Quincey had sufficient fairness to see that Whigs and Tories did during all that time represent the two halves of one great truth, and were not opposed to each other as truth and falsehood, as Whig writers and speakers delight to represent

them.

them. But his mind, which was prematurely virile, first began to think and question during the fever of the French Revolution. The first great mind to the influence of which he was subjected was Coleridge's. All conspired to imbue him with a dislike of the old forms and pedantic conservatism of the eighteenth century. He liked neither its Parr, nor its Paley, nor its Pitt, nor its Johnson, nor anything that belonged to it. But he sympathised as little with French Jacobinism as afterwards with French Imperialism. He was in fact a Tory from the spiritual and ideal side of Toryism; and during the rude material struggle of those early years this aspect of the creed was necessarily much out of sight. Latterly, however, and immediately after the Reform Bill, he became a Tory of the strictest sect. But this was rather because he revolted from the unimaginative and utilitarian character of Radicalism than because he approved the whole practical policy of the Tories. He was in many respects a 'Liberal' in the truest sense of the word. He was ready to challenge all comers, to investigate all problems, to hold every truth up to the light. But his well-trained intellect rested firmly on that deep and broad theory of politics which has its foundation in the ancient philosophy. That one thing is set over against another; that the universe is one vast fabric of graduated being rising tier above tier to the Deity; that each separate class is in itself a miniature of the whole; that each has a proper principle, according to which its own separate parts are adjusted to each other; and that each may be thrown into confusion if it attempt to move (progress) in disregard of this principle; these were the apxaì, or starting-points, which formed the basis of De Quincey's creed. The fact that modern Radicalism was characterised by an avowed contempt of this principle or idea, which underlay the organism of any given society, was sufficient to make De Quincey a Tory. The systematic preference of the γνωριμώτερον ἡμῖν to the φύσει γνωριμώτερον ; the assertion that every particular, immediate, and sensible anomaly, or inconsistency, was all that concerned us; and that any anxiety to harmonize the correction of local disorders with the operation of a higher law was unworthy of a man of sense: these were the vulgarisms which drew an impassable line of demarcation between himself and the modern school of Reformers. These men, according to De Quincey's theory, approach every subject at the wrong end. Instead of examining the idea, law, or final cause, of any institution, and trying to ascertain whether that has been worked out, and the institution is consequently effete, they fasten their gaze solely upon some ephemeral or aberratic development in some particular direction, which they

lay

lay down as a test of obsoleteness. In practical politics we see daily illustrations of this spirit. The small boroughs, for instance, are what, is called 'a practical anomaly.' The representation of various interests is a principle of the Constitution. Do the Radical Reformers show the slightest inclination to respect the principle while devising remedies for the anomaly? On the contrary, men tell us openly that no practical anomaly can any longer be defended in England by reference to a mere principle; and they openly brag of their empiricism. The inequalities of income in the Church are perhaps another practical anomaly. But the existence of a territorial hierarchy represents another great principle, which has the possibility of this anomaly wrapped up in it. Are we to remove the anomaly at the risk of destroying the principle?—to cut off an excrescence that disfigures us at the risk of bleeding to death? Yes, certainly, say the Radicals. One great reason of this fatal tendency in modern times is doubtless this: that to grasp and appreciate principles of this description is a process of the intellect, and can only be achieved by minds of some logical discipline; whereas it is open to the meanest capacity to see the particular disproportion of numbers to representatives in the one case, and of income to work in the other. To reach the higher law requires, in the first place, some intellectual tension; and in the second place a belief in such laws. De Quincey, whose long study of metaphysics made him well acquainted both with the Platonic ideas' and the Baconian laws,' so admirably harmonized by Coleridge, seems also to have had faith in the Platonic theory of knowledge, which consisted in the apprehension of these ideas. Coleridge's political writings have constant reference to Platonism. His views on Church and State' are everywhere coloured by this philosophy. After giving us his idea of the State as a body representing three principles, i.e. the principle of permanence (the landed aristocracy), the principle of progress (commerce), and the principle of intelligence (the learned professions), he also gives us his idea of the Church as it exists at present, which starts from the highest a priori standing ground. His great objection to Roman Catholic Émancipation is that it may some day lead to the recognition of Irish Romanism as the Irish Church: a clear deviation from the idéa of the Catholic Church. And this is precisely the view of the most orthodox, learned, and enlightened Anglicans. Whereas your chance neighbour in an omnibus or at a dinner party can only look at the coarse argument of numbers, and think that the present Irish Church must be the intruder, and not the disciples of the Church of Rome. Coleridge and the High Vol. 110.-No. 219. Churchmen

D

Churchmen deduce their conclusion from the pre-existent idea of a universal Church. Our friend in question gathers his from a posterior fact by which his own mental vision is bounded. So again, in the much-vexed controversy of Charles the First and his Parliament, both Coleridge and De Quincey took the side of the latter. But why? Not that they thought Charles was deliberately violating the laws as they existed in his reign, but because he was deviating from the 'idea' of the British Constitution.

To the ordinary arguments, whether of Conservatism or Whiggery, neither Coleridge nor De Quincey attached much weight. Vested interests,' 'the bursting of the floodgates,' and such like, were in their eyes phrases to scare children. The strenuous exercise of the pure reason landed them in a certain political theory. How it was to be carried out or defended was the business of statesmen to inquire. Certain eternal principles of human society they believed to be deducible from the constitution of nature. These pre-existent ideas are only understood by the more educated and thoughtful few. They can never be practically carried out in a state of abstract perfection. But we are to keep our eyes fixed upon this ideal: this should be the fountain from which we draw the conception of all legislative improvements; and if we attempt to remedy particular and casual evils, in neglect of this standard, it is more than probable that our medicines will turn out poisons, and the result death.

Underneath all these views lay the profound conviction that in Government and society there is something more than meets the eye.' The vulgar abuse of institutions was, in De Quincey's judgment, very like Johnson's refutation of Berkeley. The real verities which lie at the back of, and are often obscured by, phænomena, are neither understood nor respected by the Radical. He is a slave to the senses, and his powers of reasoning are limited in proportion. He is, in fact, the savage of civilization, to whom the venerable decencies of the social fabric are troublesome fetters, and the grand truths of political philosophy unintelligible jargon.

Such, as near as we can conjecture, was the political creed of Thomas De Quincey. It is not stated in his writings in so many words; but it exhales from them. He forms one of a very small class who bring to the consideration of material questions the habit of subtle thought which is acquired in the schools. The practical efficiency of such a creed is probably slight; but its value as adding dignity to a contest which is ever too apt to sink down into a scramble for ephemeral advantages cannot be exaggerated.