of the age, but almost
equally sad. Their lives might be put into tracts for the use of
opium-eaters; and whilst there was still hope of redeeming them, it
might have been worth while to condemn them with severity. Indignation
is now out of place, and we can only grieve and pass by. When thousands
of men are drinking themselves to death every year, there is nothing
very strange or dramatic in the history of one ruined by opium instead
of by gin.

From De Quincey's writings we get the notion of a man amiable, but with
an uncertain temper; with fine emotions, but an utter want of moral
strength; and, in short, of a nature of much delicacy and tenderness
retreating into opium and the Lake district, from a world which was too
rough for him. He uttered in many fragmentary ways his views of
philosophy and politics. Whatever their value, De Quincey has of course
no claim to be an originator. He not only had not strength to stand
alone, but he belonged to a peculiar side-current of English thought. He
was the adjective of which Coleridge was the substantive; and if
Coleridge himself was an unsatisfactory and imperfect thinker, his
imperfections are greatly increased in his friend and disciple. He
shared that belief which some people have not yet abandoned, that the
answer to all our perplexities is to be found in some of the mysteries
of German metaphysics. If we could only be taught to distinguish between
the reason and the understanding, the scales would fall from our eyes,
and we should see that the Thirty-nine Articles contained the plan on
which the universe was framed. He had an acquaintance, which, if his own
opinion were correct, was accurate and profound with Kant's writings,
and had studied Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel. He could talk about
concepts and categories and schematisms without losing his head amongst
those metaphysical heights. He knew how by the theoretic reason to
destroy all proofs of the existence of God, and then, by introducing the
practical reason, to set the existence of God beyond a doubt. He fancied
that he was able to translate the technicalities of Kant into plain
English; and he believed that when so translated, they would prove to
have a real and all important meaning. If German metaphysics be a
science, and not a mere edifice of moonshine; and if De Quincey had
really penetrated the secrets of that science, we have missed a chance
of enlightenment. As it is, we have little left except a collec