Death has deprived us of one of the literary worthies
of a famous school. Mr. Thomas de Quincey, "the English Opium Eater," died at Edinburgh on Thursday, in his 75th year. Few prose writers of modern times have shown a greater command of the English tongue, than the author who has just gone from among us "over to the majority." Few have surpassed him in depth of thought, in humour, in pathos, in simplicity. His best works will always remain as monuments of substantial Eng- lish literature. The old race of writers who shed so brilliant a light upon the early years of the nineteenth century, are fast fading out of our ken. There are not many on this:side the grave. Thomas de Quinecy has rapidly followed Leigh Hunt, and only those who forty years ago were the younger brethren of the band survive to link the present with the past.
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