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EDINBURGH: JAMES HOGG.

LONDON: R. GROOMBRIDGE & SONS.

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HOGG'S INSTRUCTOR.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY AND HIS WORKS.

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ON entering upon the study of De Quincey's writings, the first thing with which we are impressed is, a certain air of perfect ease, and as it were relaxation, which breathes around. The river glideth at his own sweet will;' now lingering to dally with the water-lilies, now wandering into green nooks to reflect the grey rock and silvery birch, now rolling in stately silence through the rich smooth meadow, now leaping amid a thousand rainbows into the echoing chasm, while the spray rises upwards in a wavering and painted column; mildness, or majesty, or wild Titanic strength may be displayed, but the river is ever at the same perfect ease, all-unconscious of the spectator. We think the metaphor is no exaggerated expression of De Quincey's mode of writing. My way of writing is rather to think aloud, and follow my own humours, than much to consider who is listening to me;' these words, used with express reference to the mode in which he composed the Confessions,' may be taken as characterising, in a degree more or less eminent, his universal manner. The goal, indeed, is always kept in view; however circuitous the wandering may be, there is always a return to the subject; the river's course is always seawards: but there are no fixed embankments, between which, in straight purpose-like course, the stream is compelled to flow: you are led aside in the most wayward unaccountable manner, and though you must allow that every individual bay and wooded creek is in itself beautiful, yet, being a Briton, accustomed to feed on facts, like the alligators whom the old naturalists asserted to live upon stones, and thinking it right to walk to the purpose of a book with that firm step and by that nearest VOL. III.-JULY, 1854.

road which conduct you to your office, you are soon ready to exclaim that this is trifling, and that you wish the author could speak to the point. But there is some witchery which still detains you: the trifling seems to be flavoured by some indefinable essence, which spreads an irresistible charm around; you recollect that nature has innumerable freaks, and may present, in one quarter of a mile, the giant rock and the quivering blue-bell, the defiant oak and the trodden lichen, the almost stagnant pool and the surging cataract: at length the thought dawns upon you, that this author is great because he cannot help it; that he is a force in the hand of nature; that, whether you smile, or frown, or weep, or wonder, he goes on with the bounding grace of absolute ease, speaking with pure spontaneity the thoughts that arise within him. Then your trust becomes deeper, your earnestness of study redoubles: you are profoundly convinced that here is no pretence, no unnatural effort, and your murmuring turns to astonishment at the complexity, richness, and strangely blended variety of nature's effects. your experience is the same as ours most honestly was, you will proceed from a certain pleasureable titillation produced by what you deem twaddle, though twaddle deliciously spiced by genius, to the conviction that, however hampered, however open to objection, here is an intellect, in all the great faculties of analysis, combination, and reception, of a power and range which you are at a loss to measure or define. De Quincey's writings lie scattered wide: we hesitate not to think that those on which a correct and definite appreciation of his merits may best be grounded, have not yet been separately published in this country; we at least never formed any

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