A TALE FROM THE GERMAN OF TIECK Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend Roderick. The light was burning before him; the winter evening was cold; and to-day he wished for the presence of his fellow-traveller, though at other times wont rather to avoid his society: for on this evening […]

FROM THE GERMAN. CHAPTER I. IN WHAT MANNER MR. SCHNACKENBERGER MADE HIS ENTRY INTO B—-. The sun had just set, and all the invalids at the baths of B—- had retired to their lodgings, when the harsh tones of welcome from the steeple announced the arrival of a new guest. Forthwith all the windows were […]

From Jean Paul Frederick Richter. Since the day when the town of Haslau first became the seat of a Court, no man could remember that any one event in its annals (always excepting the birth of the hereditary prince) had been looked for with so anxious a curiosity as the opening of the last will […]

The German dictionaries, compiled for the use of Englishmen studying thatlanguage, are all bad enough, I doubt not, even in this year 1823; but thoseof a century back are the most ludicrous books that ever mortal read:read, I say, for they are well worth reading, being often as good as ajest book. In some instances, […]

A false ridicule has settled upon Novels, and upon Young Ladies as the readers of novels. Love, we are told authoritatively, has not that importance in the actual practice of life–nor that extensive influence upon human affairs–which novel-writers postulate, and which the interest of novels presumes. Something to this effect has been said by an […]

This Paper, originally written for me in 1857, and published in Titan for July of that year, has not appeared in any collective edition of the author’s works, British or American. It was his closing contribution to a series of three articles concerning Chinese affairs; prepared when our troubles with that Empire seemed to render […]

The only one which can be considered satisfactory is that of which a copy is prefixed to these Volumes. It is from a steel engraving by Frank Croll, taken at Edinburgh from a daguerreotype by Howie in 1850. DE QUINCEY’S own opinion of it is expressed to me in the amusing letter which was published […]

THE CASUISTRY OF DUELLING.[1] This mention of Allan Cunningham recalls to my recollection an affair which retains one part of its interest to this day, arising out of the very important casuistical question which it involves. We Protestant nations are in the habit of treating casuistry as a field of speculation, false and baseless per […]

HOW TO WRITE ENGLISH.[1] Among world-wide objects of speculation, objects rising to the dignity of a mundane or cosmopolitish value, which challenge at this time more than ever a growing intellectual interest, is the English language. Why particularly at this time? Simply, because the interest in that language rests upon two separate foundations: there are […]

To the Editor of ‘Titan’. Dear Sir,–A year or two ago,[1] I received as a present from a distinguished and literary family in Boston (United States), a small pamphlet (twin sister of that published by Mr Payne Collier) on the text of Shakspere. Somewhere in the United States, as here in England, some unknown critic, […]

ABSTRACT OF SWEDENBORGIANISM:BY IMMANUEL KANT. (May, 1824.) —-But now to my hero. If many a forgotten writer, or writer destined to be forgotten, is on that account the more deserving of applause for having spared no cost of toil and intellectual exertion upon his works, certainly Swedenborg of all such writers is deserving of the […]

To the Editor of ‘Titan.’ My Dear Sir,–I send you a few hasty notes upon Mr. Robert Ferguson’s little work (relating to the dialect current at the English Lakes).[1] Mr. Ferguson’s book is learned and seasonable, adapted to the stage at which such studies have now arrived among us, and adapted also to a popular […]

SKETCH OF PROFESSOR WILSON.[1] Here I pause for everything that concerns in the remotest way the incidents of Professor Wilson’s life; one letter I mean to add, as I have already promised, on the particular position which he occupies in relation to modern literature; and then I have done. Meantime, let me hope that you […]

A GLANCE AT THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII.[1] What two works are those for which at this moment our national intellect (or, more rigorously speaking, our popular intellect) is beginning clamorously to call? They are these: first, a Conversations-Lexicon, obeying (as regards plan and purpose) the general outline of the German work bearing that title; […]

PREFIGURATIONS OF REMOTE EVENTS.[1] (April, 1823.) With a total disbelief in all the vulgar legends of supernatural agency, and that upon firmer principles than I fear most people could assign for their incredulity, I must yet believe that the ‘soul of the world’ has in some instances sent forth mysterious types of the cardinal events, […]

In now reproducing the three series of notes on the Indian Mutiny written by DE QUINCEY for me in Titan, I must advert briefly to the agony of apprehension under which the two earlier chapters were written. I can never forget the intense anxiety with which he studied daily the columns of The Scotsman and […]

THE LION’S HEAD.[1] To the Editor of the London Magazine. Westmoreland, November 4, 1823. My dear Sir,–This morning I received your parcel, containing amongst other inclosures, the two last numbers of your journal. In the first of these is printed a little paper of mine on Mr. Malthus; and in the second I observe a […]

MEASURE OF VALUE.[1] (December, 1823.) To the reader.–This article was written and printed before the author heard of the lamented death of Mr. Ricardo. It is remarkable at first sight that Mr. Malthus, to whom Political Economy is so much indebted in one chapter (viz. the chapter of Population), should in every other chapter have […]

EDUCATION.PLANS FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF BOYS IN LARGE NUMBERS.[1] (April and May, 1824.) This is the work of a very ingenious man, and records the most original experiment in Education which in this country at least has been attempted since the date of those communicated by the Edgeworths. We say designedly ‘in this country;’ because […]

THE SERVICES OF MR. RICARDO TO THE SCIENCE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, BRIEFLY AND PLAINLY STATED.[1] (March, 1824.) I do not remember that any public event of our own times has touched me so nearly, or so much with the feelings belonging to a private affliction, as the death of Mr. Ricardo. To me in some […]