ho has become bitter in an
internecine contest. It is not quite so pleasant to discover the same
bitterness in a gentleman who has looked on from a distance, and never
quite made up his mind to buckle on his armour. De Quincey had not
earned the right of speaking evil of his enemies. If a man chances to be
a Hedonist, he should show the good temper which is the best virtue of
the indolent. To lie on a bed of roses, and snarl at everybody who
contradicts your theories, seems to imply rather testiness of temper
than strength of conviction. De Quincey is a Christian on Epicurean
principles. He dislikes an infidel because his repose is disturbed by
the arguments of freethinkers. He fears that he will be forced to think
conscientiously, and to polish his logical weapons afresh. He mutters
that the man is a fool, and could be easily thrashed if it were worth
while, and then turns back to his opium and his rhetoric and his beloved
Church of England. There is no pleasanter institution for a gentleman
who likes magnificent historical associations, and heartily hates the
rude revolutionists who would turn the world upside down, and thereby
disturb the rest of dreamy metaphysicians.

He is quite pathetic, too, about the British Constitution. 'Destroy the
House of Lords,' he exclaims, 'and henceforward, for people like you and
me, England will be no habitable land.' Here, he seems to say, is one
charming elysium, where no rude hand has swept away the cobwebs or
replaced the good old-fashioned machinery; here we may find rest in the
'pure, holy, and magnificent Church,' whose Articles, interpreted by
Coleridge, may guide us through the most wondrous of metaphysical
labyrinths, and dwell in a grand constitutional edifice, rich in
picturesque memories, and blending into one complex harmony elements
contributed by a long series of centuries. And you, wretched French
revolutionists, with your love of petty precision, and irreverent
radicals and utilitarians, with your grovelling material notions,
propose to level, and destroy, and break in upon my delicious reveries.
No old Hebrew prophet could be more indignant with the enemy who
threatened to break down the carved work of his temples with axes and
hammers. But his complaint is, after all, the voice of the sluggard. Let
me dream a little longer; for much as I love my country and its
institutions, I cannot rouse myself to fight for them. It is enough if I
call their assailants an ugly n