n looked down upon with pity and
contempt by common-place men of talent, whose powers of mind--though a
thousand times inferior--were yet more manageable, and ran in channels
more suited to common uses and common understandings.

N.B. About the year 1812 I remember seeing in many of the print-shops
a whole-length sketch in water-colours of Walking Stewart in his
customary dress and attitude. This, as the only memorial (I presume)
in that shape of a man whose memory I love, I should be very glad to
possess; and therefore I take the liberty of publicly requesting as a
particular favour from any reader of this article, who may chance to
remember such a sketch in any collection of prints offered for sale,
that he would cause it to be sent to the Editor of the LONDON
MAGAZINE, who will pay for it.

_De Quincey._

ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN MACBETH

From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point
in Macbeth: it was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to
the murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I
never could account: the effect was--that it reflected back upon the
murder a peculiar awfulness and a depth of solemnity: yet, however
obstinately I endeavoured with my understanding to comprehend this,
for many years I never could see _why_ it should produce such an
effect.----

Here I pause for one moment to exhort the reader never to pay any
attention to his understanding when it stands in opposition to any
other faculty of his mind. The mere understanding, however useful and
indispensable, is the meanest faculty in the human mind and the most
to be distrusted: and yet the great majority of people trust to
nothing else; which may do for ordinary life, but not for philosophic
purposes. Of this, out of ten thousand instances that I might produce,
I will cite one. Ask of any person whatsoever, who is not previously
prepared for the demand by a knowledge of perspective, to draw in the
rudest way the commonest appearance which depends upon the laws of
that science--as for instance, to represent the effect of two walls
standing at right angles to each other, or the appearance of the
houses on each side of a street, as seen by a person looking down the
street from one extremity. Now in all cases, unless the person has
happened to observe in pictures how it is that artists produce these
effects, he will be utterly unable to make the smallest approximation
to