gratulate ourselves on
a propensity, unfortunate it may be, for its victim, but leading to the
Confessions as one collateral result.

The life of De Quincey by "H. A. Page," published since this was
written, has removed much of the mystery; and it has also done much to
raise in some respects our estimate of his character. With all his
weaknesses De Quincey undoubtedly was a man who could excite love as
well as pity. Incapable, to a grotesque degree, of anything like
business, he did his best to discharge domestic duties: he had a
punctilious sense of honour, and got himself into difficulties by a
generosity which was certainly not corrected by the virtue of prudence.
But I will not attempt to sum up the facts, for which, as for a higher
estimate than I can subscribe of his intellectual position, I gladly
refer to his biography. I have only to do with the De Quincey of books
which have a singular fascination. De Quincey himself gives thanks for
four circumstances. He rejoices that his lot was cast in a rustic
solitude; that that solitude was in England: that his 'infant feelings
were moulded by the gentlest of sisters,' instead of 'horrid pugilistic
brothers;' and that he and his were members of 'a pure, holy, and' (the
last epithet should be emphasized) 'magnificent Church.' The
thanksgiving is characteristic, for it indicates his naive conviction
that his admiration was due to the intrinsic merits of the place and
circumstances of his birth, and not to the accident that they were his
own. It would be useless to inquire whether a more bracing atmosphere
and a less retired spot might have been more favourable to his talents;
but we may trace the influence of these conditions of his early life
upon his subsequent career.

* * * * *

De Quincey implicitly puts forward a claim which has been accepted by
all competent critics. They declare, and he tacitly assumes, that he is
a master of the English language. He claims a sort of infallibility in
deciding upon the precise use of words and the merits of various styles.
But he explicitly claims something more. He declares that he has used
language for purposes to which it has hardly been applied by any prose
writers. The 'Confessions of an Opium-eater' and the 'Suspiria de
Profundis' are, he tells us, 'modes of impassioned prose, ranging under
no precedents that I am aware of in any literature.' The only
confessions that have previously made any