tumult, until all lesser passions are swallowed up, and the empire of a
blank, rayless revenge is triumphant; we are spellbound amid the
successive stages of the demoniac tragedy; we start up convulsively, as
from the horrors of nightmare, at its ghastly catastrophe. But, over and
above all this, in that melody, in that music of style, which exalts
prose to the dignity of poetry, De Quincey is absolutely without a
rival. Read the 'Confessions,' or the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' or the
touching tribute to the Maid of Orleans, and all doubt upon that point
will disappear. Besides, over the surface of his writings there ripples
a quaint, genial humor, which is, for the most part, kept within the
limits of propriety by an exquisite taste. In marked contrast to many of
our most illustrious writers, De Quincey always exhibits a profound
respect for Christianity. Listen to his indignant rebuke of Kant, who,
in his work on 'Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason,' had
expressed opinions so utterly atheistical as to draw forth severe
menaces from the reigning King of Prussia, Frederic William the Second:
'Surely, gray hairs and irreligion make a monstrous union; and the
spirit of proselytism carried into the service of infidelity--a youthful
zeal put forth by a tottering, decrepid old man, to withdraw from
desponding and suffering human nature its most essential props, whether
for action or suffering, for conscience or for hope, is a spectacle too
disgusting to leave room for much sympathy with merit of another kind.'
Finally, we love De Quincey for his abhorrence of all knavish or
quackish men, and his deep respect for human nature. We suspect that but
few dignitaries of the past ever received so sound a 'knouting' as did
that 'accursed Jew' Josephus, at his hands; nor do Grotius and Dr. Parr
fare much better. He believes Josephus to be a villain, Grotius and Dr.
Parr literary impostors, and he strips off their masks in a very summary
manner. But with the trials, the struggles, the miseries of humanity, no
man more profoundly sympathizes than Thomas de Quincey. 'Oftentimes,'
says he, speaking of the daily police reports, 'oftentimes I stand
aghast at the revelations there made of human life and the human heart;
at its colossal guilt, and its colossal misery; at the suffering which
oftentimes throws a shadow over palaces, and the grandeur of mute
endurance which sometimes glorifies a cottage.' How touching is his
memorial of th