Some Books of the Week
CONTROVERSY will always rage—lap, rather—round the • question of a genius's earliest literary works, whether they should be raked up and published or not ; and admirers of De Quincey's mature and beautiful prose will have a nice point to decide in the matter of the great English Opium Eater's diary, which has recently come to light. This little book, The Diary of Thomas be Quincey, 1803 (Noel Douglas, 15s.), is handsomely produced, a facsimile of the original MS. being given as well as the typescript, but apart from the letters to Wordsworth it contains nothing intrinsically readable and is, indeed, little more than the scribblings of an intelligent, seventeen-year-old boy, who was not very happy. Is the fact that this boy later produced works of genius enough to justify publication ? We think not, despite Mr. Horace Eaton's able introduction "for the defence." A very pleasant edition of The Confessions with the other papers on "The English Mail-Coach," &c., is published simultaneously by Messrs. Constable (E1 1s.), edited by Mr. George Saintsbury, with an illuminating preface by him.
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