ed to confessions. He compares himself, as
I have said, to Rousseau and Augustine. The analogy with the last of
these two writers would, I should imagine, be rather difficult to carry
beyond the first part of resemblance; but it is possible to make out a
somewhat closer affinity to Rousseau. In both cases, at least, we have
to deal with men of morbid temperament, ruined or seriously injured by
their utter incapacity for self-restraint. So far, however, as their
confessions derive an interest from the revelation of character,
Rousseau is more exciting almost in the same proportion as he confesses
greater weaknesses. The record of such errors by their chief actor, and
that actor a man of such singular ability, presents us with a strangely
attractive problem. De Quincey has less to confess, and is less anxious
to lay bare his own morbid propensities. His story excites compassion;
and, as in the famous episode of 'Anne,' attracts us by the genuine
tenderness and delicacy of feeling. He was free from the errors which
make some of Rousseau's confessions loathsome, but he was also not the
man to set fire, like Rousseau, to the hearts of a whole generation. His
narrative is a delight to literary students; not a volcanic outburst to
shake the foundations of society. Nearly all that he has to tell us is
that he ran away from school, spent some time in London, for no very
assignable reason, in a semi-starving condition, and then, equally
without reason, surrendered at discretion to the respectabilities and
went to Oxford like an ordinary human being. It is no doubt a proof of
extraordinary literary power that the facts told with De Quincey's
comment of rich meditative eloquence become so fascinating.
Unfortunately, though he managed to write recollections which are, in
their way, unique, he never achieved anything at all comparable to his
autobiographic revelations. Vague thoughts passed through his mind of
composing a great work on Political Economy, or of writing a still more
wonderful treatise on the Emendation of the Human Intellect. But he
never seems to have made any decided steps towards the fulfilment of
such dreams, and remained to the end of his days a melancholy specimen
of wasted force. There is nothing, unfortunately, very uncommon in the
story, except so far as its hero was a man of genius. The history of
Coleridge exemplifies a still higher ambition, resulting, it is true, in
a much greater influence upon the thought