DE QIIINCEY MEMORIALS.* Du. JAPP has written the fullest and

by far the most satis- factory biography of De Quincey, and, thanks to the labours of Dr. Masson and others, the curiosity of most readers with regard to the" Opium-Eater "is perhaps already satisfied. Yet the character of the man remains as inexplicable as ever, or is to be explained only by the influene,e of opium. The nevcand Very miscellaneous material which forms these volumes contains a good deal of interesting information with regard to De Quincey's family and friends, and it is to be regretted that

• (1.) De gnincey Mentork/s. Being Letters and other Records here first pub. lished. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Narrative, by Alexander H. Japp, LL.D., F.E.S.E. 2 vols. London : Heinemann.—(2.1 The Posthumous Works of Thomas de Quineey. Edited from the Original MSS., with Introduc- tion and Notes, by Alexander H. Japp, LL.D. Vol. I., " Sttspiria de Profandis," with other Essays. London : Heinemann. 1831.

the editor was unable to use some of this correspondence in the Life, where it would 'have been far more effective than as a separate publication.

Of his mother he once wrote as an intellectual- woman, and added:—" I believe that if ever her letters should be collected and published, they would be thought generally to exhibit as much strong and masculine sense delivered in as pure mother-English, racy and fresh with idiomatic graces, as any in our language—hardly excepting those of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu." Many of Mrs. de Quincey's letters to her son are now printed for the first time, and if these letters do not justify his eulogium—and this, con- sidering their purport, it would be unreasonable to ex- pect—they have the merit of shrewd sense, generous feeling, and motherly affection under the most trying circumstances. Mrs. de Quincey was a friend of Hannah More, and one of her many fittings was to a home near Barley Wood, in order that she might enjoy her society. Two or three letters from that once celebrated lady are printed, full of pious platitudes and estimable sentiments, and one day a note from Hannah More was brought, so Mrs. de Quincey writes, "by a curious little boy, begging us to receive him for a couple of days (Barley Wood overflowing with company)." The boy was Thomas Babington Macaulay, and his hostess fears that he will be rained by praise, since "he says such extraordinary things." "This Macaulay," she adds in a postscript, "has half read over The Mysteries of Udolpho this evening; he travels post, and amuses me inexpressibly with his motions and emotions."

It has been judged from De Quincey's statements that his mother was unwise in the treatment of her children, and that while always ready to fulfil her duties towards them, she was deficient in sympathy. Dr. Japp writes of the" utter formality which marked her relations with her children," and of the "utter coldness and precision of her endearments." There may be some truth in this estimate, but it should be remembered, on the other hand, that no mother had ever a more refractory child to manage than Thomas de Quincey; and in dealing with a boy who assumed at school the independence of a man, it may well be that she sometimes acted unwisely. That she did not understand her wayward son, is no matter of blame; and when he fell under the influence of opium, his acts, as well as his abstention from acting under pressing motives for exertion, surprised and vexed his most intimate friends quite as much as they grieved his mother. Dr. Japp allows that her letters to Thomas at Oxford "are marked by great anxiety for his welfare," that there was really in her much more tenderness than lay on the surface, and that "she was prepared for any form of self-denial likely to secure her children's happiness and success in life." At no period does De Quincey appear to have made a friend of his mother. He married without informing her ; and it was not until money difficulties conipelled him to acknowledge the fact, that he wrote to her on the subject. It is to be hoped that his wife did not see the amazing statement De Quincey had written in the first instance, and which some good angel happily pre- vented him from sending. Truly does the editor observe that it "could hardly have had the effect of conciliating his mother."

Of Mrs. de Quincey's three sons, there was not one who brought her aught but sorrow. Henry seems to have had the same incapacity for the affairs of daily life exhibited by his distinguished brother. Without any income sufficient to sup- port a wife, he married, to quote his mother's words, "a very handsome, well-disposed, and well-mannered young woman, the daughter of a captain of a trading-vessel." They had both bad health, she adds, and dressed like people of fortune. "This is wonderful to us, and we think she should be willing to spare a little from her dress to nourish her life by better food." In the prospect of an uncle returning from India, the unreasonable young man "set up a considerable establishment," which the "nabob," who had but 2700 a year on his retirement, naturally declined to support. It is amusing to find his brother Thomas writing to this shiftless young Benedick, who died at the early age of twenty-seven, and advising him to practise economy. Richard, who was only twenty-six when he died, had a still more unfortunate career. Like Thomas, he ran away from school, and entering on board ship as a cabin-boy, suffered the greatest privations. Afterwards be secured a rating in the Navy, and finally, having left his ship for a sporting expedition on the Blue Mountains, was never heard of again. De Quincey had also two sisters,—Mary, who married a clergyman and died in her first confinement, and Jane, who was never married, lived, as Dr. Japp informs us, "to a long age," and died in 1873. Both Mary and Jane write letters marked by the sentimentality which was more vogue in the days of the Byron fever than in our own.

Jane has a passion for mountain scenery, learns Italian and Spanish, declares she could read Joanna Baffle's De Mont- fort a thousand times, expresses her admiration of Coleridge and Wordsworth, and seems, if letters be a test of character, to have been a lively and intelligent girl. Mary, too, has a

taste for literature, reads Spanish, and "becomes more pas- sionately fond every day "of Wordsworth's poetry; she asks De

Quincey to buy her books, one of them being Mrs. Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest, and writes, on receiving an account of his Grasmere cottage :—" To give you an idea how ardently I desire to see it, to range those mountains, and to hang in

ecstasy over those clear waters which have been the subject of so many of my sleeping and waking dreams, is quite im- possible." No doubt scores of enthusiastic girls in the early years of this century wrote to their brothers in a similar strain to that of Mary and Jane de Quincey.

Happily, these volumes contain letters which are more worthy of attention. Every reader is aware of De Quincey'a youthful enthusiasm for Coleridge and Wordsworth. After escaping from the Manchester school, he wrote a letter to the latter expressive of his admiration ; and Wordsworth's reply is as wise as it is friendly ;—

"It would be out of nature," he writes, "were I not to have kind feelings towards one who expresses sentiments of such pro- found esteem and admiration of my writings as you have done. You can have no doubt but that these sentiments, however con- veyed to me, must have been acceptable; and I assure you that they are still more welcome coming from yourself. You will thus perceive that the main end which you proposed to yourself in writing to me is answered,—viz., that I am already kindly disposed towards you. My friendship it is not in my power to give ; this is a gift which no man can make ; it is not in our own power. A sound and healthy friendship is the growth of time and circum- stance; it will spring up and thrive like a wild-flower when these

favour, and when they do not it is in vain to look for it The very unreasonable value which you set upon my writings, compared with those of others, gave me great concern. You are young and ingenuous, and I wrote with the hope of pleasing the young, the ingenuous, the unworldly, above all others, but sorry indeed should I be to stand in the way of the proper influence of other writers. You will know that I allude to the great names of past times, and above all to those of our own country. I have taken the liberty of saying this much to hasten on the time when you will value my poems not less but those of others more. That time, I know, would come of itself, and may come sooner for what I have said, which at all events I am sure you cannot take ill."

The letter from which we have quoted was written by the poet before the tour in Scotland with his sister and Coleridge. Eight months later, Wordsworth wrote again, addressing his letter to De Quincey at Worcester College, Oxford, and ex- pressing in the kindest manner his hope that he would not be seduced into unworthy pleasures and pursuits

"I need not say to you," he adds, " that there is no true dignity but in virtue and temperance, and let me add, chastity; and that the best safeguard of all these is the cultivation of pure plea- sures—namely, those of the intellect and affections I do not mean to preach; I speak in simplicity and tender apprehen- sion as one lover of nature and virtue speaking to another."

All, indeed, that Wordsworth writes to De Quincey in these letters is admirable, and it seems strange that they should have remained so long in manuscript.

There is no trait in De Quincey's character more pleasing than his love of Wordsworth's children, and Miss Words-

worth's gossiping letters about them form perhaps the most attractive feature of these volumes. Her little loving details show how sure she was of sympathy from her correspondent. To be enjoyed they must be read at large, but one or two short passages about these pets may be given :—

" The children are all well, your pupil as sweet as the best of them, though not quite so handsome. She wears no cap and has no hair—her father calls her his little Chinese Maiden. She has the funniest laugh you ever saw peeping through her eyes; and she is as good-tempered as ever. Dorothy is beautiful, and a delightful creature when she behaves well; but I am sorry to add that she is very wayward, and I fear we shall have great trouble in subduing her. She is quick at her book and quick at everything. John is made up of good and noble feelings— he is the delight of everybody who knows him—all his playmates love him ; he blushes and looks pleased whenever your return is talked of. Last night when he had finished his prayers in which he makes a petition for his good friends he said, Mr. de Quincey is one of my friends.' Little Tom has been poorly and looks ill—he often lisps out your name, and will rejoice with the happiest at your return."

Of Johnny Wordsworth, Dorothy is never weary of writing. She begins one of her letters by saying :—

"I have just dismissed Johnny with his shame-faced smile, telling him that I wanted to be alone to write to Mr. de Quincey. I asked him what I should say for him, and he could think of nothing but that I should tell you to come back again, and even of that he was ashamed, and seemed to struggle with other thoughts which he could not utter, while he blushed all over his face. He is a happy creature, more joyous than ever, and yet more thoughtful I was called down- stairs and found Miss Hutchinson reading Coleridge's Christabel to Johnny. She was tired, so I read the greatest part of it. He was excessively interested, especially with the first part, but he asked, Why she could not say her prayers in her own room P' and it was his opinion that she ought to have gone directly to her father's room to tell him that she had met with a Lady under the old oak-tree and all about it."

• Mrs. Wordsworth has also many a tale to tell of her children's prattle, and of their innocent Misses, and it is evident that both she and Dorothy knew that the more they gossiped about them, the better would De Quincey be pleased.

One of his most faithful friends was Professor Wilson, and the contrast between the two men, as Dr. Japp suggests, pro- bably made their friendship all the warmer. It is almost

needless to say that there were money difficulties between them. Wilson borrowed once, but De Quincey borrowed often,

and the strain became so severe at last, that his friend was forced to decline accepting another bill. "I have suffered," he writes, "for your sake that which I would not have volun- tarily suffered for any other man alive." At the same time,

Wilson constantly urged De Quincey to write for Blackwood, saying that he might make 2150 a year in that way, and,

receiving no reply, was forced to conclude that some dis- tressing cause prevented him from so doing. When Wilson was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy, he wrote to De Quincey, asking, "What does in your belief constitute moral obligation ? and what ought to be my own doctrine on that subject P"—which will probably strike the reader as a somewhat ludicrous appeal.

The letters from Sir William Hamilton and from Captain Hamilton have the sole merit of brevity; but who will care to read an invitation to "come over to coffee," or to "dine with us to-day at 6 o'clock," or to come on Monday instead of Tuesday, "should you happen to be disengaged on that day." There is also a long and very silly letter from an American lady who tells De Quincey that he is "a man more honoured by all who are capable of appreciating him than any other English writer, dead or living." And the lady adds that had she the means, she would cross the ocean for no other purpose than to sit at his feet, and "to pour out her heart with all its deep and strong enthusiasm to one who could understand her, and would not only counsel wisely but chide gently. She would visit Grasmere, oh yes ! and pluck one rose or blade of grass, more hallowed in her eyes than moss or ivy from castle, hall, or tower, but nothing else could turn aside her steps till she was in the city where he dwells, and she had listened to the sound of his voice and looked upon a countenance in which, to her imagination, is blended the expression of all that is great and noble and good."

Dr. Japp has garnered up a good deal that is well worthy of preservation in these volumes, and the admirers of De Quincey will be grateful for his labour. A careful sifting of the con- tents when another edition is called for would undoubtedly add to the value of the work.

The " Remains " of De Quincey appear to be inexhaustible. As a sequel to the Memorials, Dr. Japp publishes a volume

of literary fragments, and promises another. It is rarely wise to sweep up the chips and shavings of an author's workshop, since there is a danger lest his finest productions should be buried under what, in comparison, may be accounted rubbish.

To De Quincey the rule does not, perhaps, apply; for although he more frequently wrote for money than for fame, he wrote nearly always with a fertile mind, and his briefest notes have the racy flavour peculiar to this great master of style. A number of felicitous sayings and wise judgments are recorded tinder the heading of " Brevia." In one of them the writer is careful to note the day, the month, and the year in which he "first perceived that the first great proof of Christianity is the proof of Judaism, and the proof of that lies in the Jehovah. What merely natural man [? is] capable of devising a God for himself such as the Jewish?" And here is a pregnant

answer to a frequent assertion:—" Not only is it false that my understanding is no measure or rule for another man, but of necessity it is so, and every step I take towards truth for myself is a step made on behalf of every other man." Now and then the reader meets with doubtful statements, and with what appear to be flippant arguments; but these jottings were not, in their rough state at least, intended for publica- tion, and no doubt De Quincey noted down thoughts as they occurred to him, with the intention of accepting or rejecting them upon further consideration. It may be remembered that a fire destroyed a portion of the Suspiria de Profundis. Dr. Japp has found four of the papers hitherto imprinted among De Quincey's manuscripts, and he is also able to give a list showing the arrangement of the whole as it would have appeared, had no accident occurred. This portion of the work is of considerable interest, and there is also a new and characteristic essay on "Murder as a Fine Art," which is perhaps worthy of its predecessor. In one on "Biography," De Quincey writes of the best of Dr. Johnson's Lives as "undoubtedly the very best which exist," and as "the most highly finished among all masterpieces of the biographic art." Much criticism follows of them and of their author, written in a different strain, but enough has been said of a volume for which every lover of De Quincey will be grateful to Dr. Japp.