y's
writing. When he tries overt acts of wit, he becomes simply vulgar; when
he directly aims at the humorous, we feel his hand to be rather heavy;
but he is occasionally very happy in that ironical method, of which the
Essay on Murder is the most notorious specimen. The best example, in my
opinion, is the description of his elder brother in the Autobiographical
Sketches. The account of the rival kingdoms of Gombroon and
Tigrasylvania; of poor De Quincey's troubles in getting rid of his
subjects' tails; of his despair at the suggestion that by making them
sit down for six hours a day they might rub them off in the course of
several centuries; of his ingenious plan of placing his unlucky island
at a distance of 75 degrees of latitude from his brother's capital; and
of his dismay at hearing of the 'vast horns and promontories' which run
down from all parts of the hostile dominions towards his unoffending
little territory, are touched with admirable skill. The grave, elaborate
detail of the perplexities of his childish imagination is pleasant, and
at the same time pathetic. When, in short, by simply applying his usual
stateliness of manner to a subject a little beneath it in dignity, he
can produce the desired effect, he is eminently successful. The same
rhetoric which would be appropriate (to use his favourite illustration)
in treating the theme of 'Belshazzar the King giving a great feast to a
thousand of his lords,' has a certain piquancy, when for Belshazzar we
substitute a schoolboy playing at monarchy. He is indulging in a
whimsical masquerade, and the pomp is assumed in sport instead of in
earnest. Nobody can do a little mock majesty so well as he who on
occasion can be seriously majestic. Yet when he altogether abandons his
strong ground, and chooses to tumble and make grimaces before us, like
an ordinary clown, he becomes simply offensive. The great tragedian is
capable on due occasion of pleasant burlesque; but sheer unadulterated
comedy is beyond his powers. De Quincey, in short, can parody his own
serious writing better than anybody, and the capacity is a proof that he
had the faculty of humour; but for a genuine substantive joke--a joke
which, resting on its own merits, instead of being the shadow of his
serious writing, is to be independently humorous--he seems, to me at
least, to be generally insufferable.

De Quincey's final claim to a unique position rests on the fact that his
'impassioned prose' was appli