There is no great event in modern history, or perhaps it may be said more broadly, none in all history, from its earliest records, less generally known, or more striking to the imagination, than the flight eastwards of a principal Tartar nation across the boundless steppes of Asia in the latter half of the last […]

[FOOTNOTE: The History of Charlemagne; with a Sketch, and History of France from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Rise of the Carlovingian Dynasty. By G.P.R. JAMES, Esq. VOL. II.] [1832.] History is sometimes treated under the splendid conception of ‘philosophy teaching by example,’ and sometimes as an ‘old almanac;’ and, agreeably to […]

‘Journal of a Tour in Greece and the Ionian Islands.’By WILLIAM MURE, of Caldwell. [1842.] What are the nuisances, special to Greece, which repel tourists from that country? They are three;–robbers, fleas, and dogs. It is remarkable that all are, in one sense, respectable nuisances–they are ancient, and of classical descent. The monuments still existing […]

[1844.] A great revolution has taken place in Scotland. A greater has been threatened. Nor is that danger even yet certainly gone by. Upon the accidents of such events as may arise for the next five years, whether fitted or not fitted to revive discussions in which many of the Non-seceders went in various degrees […]

EXHIBITED IN SIX SCENES. [1828.] [TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE.] Sir,–Some years ago you published a translation of Bottiger’s ‘Sabina,’ a learned account of the Roman toilette. I here send you a companion to that work–not a direct translation, but a very minute abstract from a similar dissertation by Hartmann, (weeded of the wordiness […]

[1852.] Everything connected with our ordinary conceptions of this man, of his real purposes, and of his ultimate fate, apparently is erroneous. That neither any motive of his, nor any ruling impulse, was tainted with the vulgar treachery imputed to him, appears probable from the strength of his remorse. And this view of his case […]

PROTESTANTISM. [Footnote: A Vindication of Protestant Principles. By Phileleutheros Anglicanus. London: Parker. 1847.] [1847.] The work whose substance and theme are thus briefly abstracted is, at this moment, making a noise in the world. It is ascribed by report to two bishops–not jointly, but alternatively–in the sense that, if one did not write the book, […]

[1852.] Forty years ago (or, in all probability, a good deal more, for we have already completed thirty-seven years from Waterloo, and my remembrances upon this subject go back to a period lying much behind that great era), I used to be annoyed and irritated by the false interpretation given to the Greek word aion, […]

[1851.] Lord Carlisle’s recent lecture upon Pope, addressed to an audience of artisans, drew the public attention first of all upon himself–that was inevitable. No man can depart conspicuously from the usages or the apparent sympathies of his own class, under whatsoever motive, but that of necessity he will awaken for the immediate and the […]

[1846.] FORCES, which are illimitable in their compass of effect, are often, for the same reason, obscure and untraceable in the steps of their movement. Growth, for instance, animal or vegetable, what eye can arrest its eternal increments? The hour-hand of a watch, who can detect the separate fluxions of its advance? Judging by the […]

GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.[Footnote: By George Finlae] [1844.] What is called Philosophical History we believe to be yet in its infancy. It is the profound remark of Mr. Finlay–profound as we ourselves understand it, i. e., in relation to this philosophical treatment, ‘That history will ever remain inexhaustible.’ How inexhaustible? Are the facts of history […]

[1839.] Hume’s argument against miracles is simply this:–Every possible event, however various in its degree of credibility, must, of necessity, be more credible when it rests upon a sufficient cause lying within the field of what is called nature, than when it does not: more credible when it obeys some mechanical cause, than when it […]

[1839.] PART I. It is remarkable, in the sense of being noticeable and interesting, but not in the sense of being surprising, that Casuistry has fallen into disrepute throughout all Protestant lands. This disrepute is a result partly due to the upright morality which usually follows in the train of the Protestant faith. So far […]

From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point in Macbeth. It was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to the murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I never could account. The effect was, that it reflected back upon the murder a peculiar […]

TO THE EDITOR OF BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE. SIR,–We have all heard of a Society for the Promotion of Vice, of the Hell-Fire Club, etc. At Brighton, I think it was, that a Society was formed for the Suppression of Virtue. That society was itself suppressed–but I am sorry to say that another exists in London, of […]

DOCTOR NORTH: You are a liberal man: liberal in the true classical sense, not in the slang sense of modern politicians and education-mongers. Being so, I am sure that you will sympathize with my case. I am an ill-used man, Dr. North–particularly ill used; and, with your permission, I will briefly explain how. A black […]

Great misconceptions have always prevailed about the Roman dinner. Dinner [coena] was the only meal which the Romans as a nation took. It was no accident, but arose out of their whole social economy. This we shall show by running through the history of a Roman day. Ridentem dicere, verum quid vetat? And the course […]

JOAN OF ARC[1] IN REFERENCE TO M. MICHELET’S HISTORY OF FRANCE. What is to be thought of her? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that–like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judaea–rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the […]

Some twenty or more years before I matriculated at Oxford, Mr. Palmer, M.P. for Bath, had accomplished two things, very hard to do on our little planet, the Earth, however cheap they may happen to be held by the eccentric people in comets: he had invented mail-coaches, and he had married the daughter[1] of a […]

[THE reader is to understand this present paper, in its two sections of The Vision, etc., and The Dream-Fugue, as connected with a previous paper on The English Mail-Coach. The ultimate object was the Dream-Fugue, as an attempt to wrestle with the utmost efforts of music in dealing with a colossal form of impassioned horror. […]

John Wolfgang von Goethe, a man of commanding influence in the literature of modern Germany throughout the latter half of his long life, and possessing two separate claims upon our notice; one in right of his own unquestionable talents; and another much stronger, though less direct, arising out of his position, and the extravagant partisanship […]

John Christopher Frederick von Schiller, was born at Marbach, a small town in the duchy of Wurtemberg, on the 10th day of November, 1759. It will aid the reader in synchronizing the periods of this great man’s life with the corresponding events throughout Christendom, if we direct his attention to the fact, that Schiller’s birth […]

Alexander Lexander Pope, the most brilliant of all wits who have at any period applied themselves to the poetic treatment of human manners, to the selecting from the play of human character what is picturesque, or the arresting what is fugitive, was born in the city of London on the 21st day of May, in […]

It sounds paradoxical, but is not so in a bad sense, to say, that in every literature of large compass some authors will be found to rest much of the interest which surrounds them on their essential non-popularity. They are good for the very reason that they are not in conformity to the current taste. […]

It has already, I believe, been said more than once in print that one condition of a good dictionary would be to exhibit the history of each word; that is, to record the exact succession of its meanings. But the philosophic reason for this has not been given; which reason, by the way, settles a […]

It is a remarkable fact, that the very finest epigram in the English language happens also to be the worst. Epigram I call it in the austere Greek sense; which thus far resembled our modern idea of an epigram, that something pointed and allied to wit was demanded in the management of the leading thought […]

There is nothing extraordinary, or that could merit a special notice, in a simple case of oversight, or in a blunder, though emanating from the greatest of poets. But such a case challenges and forces our attention, when we know that the particular passage in which it occurs was wrought and burnished with excessive pains; […]

I am myself, and always have been, a member of the Church of England, and am grieved to hear the many attacks against the Church [frequently most illiberal attacks], which not so much religion as political rancor gives birth to in every third journal that I take up. This I say to acquit myself of […]

He was a man of very extraordinary genius. He has generally been treated by those who have spoken of him in print as a madman. But this is a mistake and must have been founded chiefly on the titles of his books. He was a man of fervid mind and of sublime aspirations: but he […]

It is a remarkable proof of the inaccuracy with which most men read–that Donne’s Biathanatos has been supposed to countenance Suicide; and those who reverence his name have thought themselves obliged to apologize for it by urging, that it was written before he entered the church. But Donne’s purpose in this treatise was a pious […]

It is asserted that this is the age of Superficial Knowledge; and amongst the proofs of this assertion we find Encyclopaedias and other popular abstracts of knowledge particularly insisted on. But in this notion and its alleged proofs there is equal error–wherever there is much diffusion of knowledge, there must be a good deal of […]

In the person of this Mr. Schlosser is exemplified a common abuse, not confined to literature. An artist from the Italian opera of London and Paris, making a professional excursion to our provinces, is received according to the tariff of the metropolis; no one being bold enough to dispute decisions coming down from the courts […]

Every thing in our days is new. Roads, for instance, which, being formerly ‘of the earth earthy,’ and therefore perishable, are now iron, and next door to being immortal; tragedies, which are so entirely new, that neither we nor our fathers, through eighteen hundred and ninety odd years, gone by, since Caesar did our little […]

The Marquess Wellesley. [1] It sounds like the tolling of funeral bells, as the annunciation is made of one death after another amongst those who supported our canopy of empire through the last most memorable generation. The eldest of the Wellesleys is gone: he is gathered to his fathers; and here we have his life […]

This conversation is doubly interesting: interesting by its subject, interesting by its interlocutors; for the subject is Milton, whilst the interlocutors are Southey and Landor. If a British gentleman, when taking his pleasure in his well-armed yacht, descries, in some foreign waters, a noble vessel, from the Thames or the Clyde, riding peaceably at anchor–and […]

DIALOGUES. ORIGINAL ADVERTISEMENT, IN APRIL, 1824. I have resolved to fling my analysis of Mr. Ricardo’s system into the form of Dialogues. A few words will suffice to determine the principles of criticism which can fairly be applied to such a form of composition on such a subject. It cannot reasonably be expected that dialogues […]

The most ancient [Footnote: That is, amongst stories not wearing a mythologic character, such as those of Prometheus, Hercules, etc. The era of Troy and its siege is doubtless by some centuries older than its usual chronologic date of nine centuries before Christ. And considering the mature age of Eteocles and Polynices, the two sons […]

A SEQUEL TO ‘MURDER CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS.’ [1] [1854.] It is impossible to conciliate readers of so saturnine and gloomy a class, that they cannot enter with genial sympathy into any gaiety whatever, but, least of all, when the gaiety trespasses a little into the province of the extravagant. In such […]

[1833.] It is falsely charged upon itself by this age, in its character of censor morum, that effeminacy in a practical sense lies either amongst its full-blown faults, or amongst its lurking tendencies. A rich, a polished, a refined age, may, by mere necessity of inference, be presumed to be a luxurious one; and the […]

It is sometimes said, that a religious messenger from God does not come amongst men for the sake of teaching truths in science, or of correcting errors in science. Most justly is this said: but often in terms far too feeble. For generally these terms are such as to imply, that, although no direct and […]

It is remarkable–and, without a previous explanation, it might seem paradoxical to say it–that oftentimes under a continual accession of light important subjects grow more and more enigmatical. In times when nothing was explained, the student, torpid as his teacher, saw nothing which called for explanation–all appeared one monotonous blank. But no sooner had an […]

I. It was in winter, and in the wintry weather of the year 1803, that I first entered Oxford with a view to its vast means of education, or rather with a view to its vast advantages for study. A ludicrous story is told of a young candidate for clerical orders–that, being asked by the […]

I. VISIT TO LAXTON My route, after parting from Lord Westport at Birmingham, lay, as I have mentioned in the “Autobiographic Sketches,” through Stamford to Laxton, the Northamptonshire seat of Lord Carbery. From Stamford, which I had reached by some intolerable old coach, such as in those days too commonly abused the patience and long-suffering […]

The most remarkable instance of a combined movement in society, which history, perhaps, will be summoned to notice, is that which, in our own days, has applied itself to the abatement of intemperance. Naturally, or by any direct process, the machinery set in motion would seem irrelevant to the object: if one hundred men unite […]

What is the deadest of things earthly? It is, says the world, ever forward and rash–‘a door-nail!’ But the world is wrong. There is a thing deader than a door-nail, viz., Gillman’s Coleridge, Vol. I. Dead, more dead, most dead, is Gillman’s Coleridge, Vol. I.; and this upon more arguments than one. The book has […]

But the lower lip, which is drawn inwards with the curve of a conch shell,–oh what a convolute of cruelty and revenge is there! Cruelty!–to whom? Revenge!–for what? Ask not, whisper not. Look upwards to other mysteries. In the very region of his temples, driving itself downwards into his cruel brain, and breaking the continuity […]

It is said continually–that the age of miracles is past. We deny that it is so in any sense which implies this age to differ from all other generations of man except one. It is neither past, nor ought we to wish it past. Superstition is no vice in the constitution of man: it is […]

What else is the laying of such a stress on miracles but the case of ‘a wicked and adulterous generation asking a sign’? But what are these miracles for? To prove a legislation from God. But, first, this could not be proved, even if miracle-working were the test of Divine mission, by doing miracles until […]

Now, this is exceedingly well worth consideration. I know not at all whether what I am going to say has been said already–life would not suffice in every field or section of a field to search every nook and section of a nook for the possibilities of chance utterance given to any stray opinion. But […]

As to individual nations, it is matter of notoriety that they are often improgressive. As a whole, it may be true that the human race is under a necessity of slowly advancing; and it may be a necessity, also, that the current of the moving waters should finally absorb into its motion that part of […]

I take it for granted that every person of education will acknowledge some interest in the personal history of Immanuel Kant. A great man, though in an unpopular path, must always be an object of liberal curiosity. To suppose a reader thoroughly indifferent to Kant, is to suppose him thoroughly unintellectual; and, therefore, though in […]

Few people need to be told–that associations exist up and down Christendom, having the ambitious object of abolishing war. Some go so far as to believe that this evil of war, so ubiquitous, so ancient and apparently so inalienable from man’s position upon earth, is already doomed; that not the private associations only, but the […]

To speak in the simplicity of truth, caring not for party or partisan, is not the France of this day, the France which has issued from that great furnace of the Revolution, a better, happier, more hopeful France than the France of 1788? Allowing for any evil, present or reversionary, in the political aspects of […]

Two facts on which a sound estimate of the Roman corn-trade depends are these: first, the very important one, that it was not Rome in the sense of the Italian peninsula which relied upon foreign corn, but in the narrowest sense Rome the city; as respected what we now call Lombardy, Florence, Genoa, etc., Rome […]

Anecdotes illustrative of manners, above all of national manners, will be found on examination, in a far larger proportion than might be supposed, rank falsehoods. Malice is the secret foundation of all anecdotes in that class. The ordinary course of such falsehoods is, that first of all some stranger and alien to those feelings which […]

Some years ago I had occasion to remark that a new era was coming on by hasty strides for national politics, a new organ was maturing itself for public effects. Sympathy–how great a power is that! Conscious sympathy–how immeasurable! Now, for the total development of this power, time is the most critical of elements. Thirty […]

(SOME NOTES FOR A NEW PAPER.) A new paper on Murder as a Fine Art might open thus: that on the model of those Gentlemen Radicals who had voted a monument to Palmer, etc., it was proposed to erect statues to such murderers as should by their next-of-kin, or other person interested in their glory, […]

All anecdotes, as I have often remarked in print, are lies. It is painful to use harsh words, and, knowing by my own feelings how much the reader is shocked by this rude word lies, I should really be much gratified if it were possible to supplant it by some gentler or more courteous word, […]

We are not to suppose the rebel, or, more properly, corrupted angels–the rebellion being in the result, not in the intention (which is as little conceivable in an exalted spirit as that man should prepare to make war on gravitation)–were essentially evil. Whether a principle of evil–essential evil–anywhere exists can only be guessed. So gloomy […]

SPECIMEN TRANSLATION FROM VOSS IN HEXAMETERS, WITH LETTER TO PROFESSOR W. (‘CHRISTOPHER NORTH’). DR. NORTH, Doctor, I say, for I hear that the six Universities of England and Scotland have sent you a doctor’s degree, or, if they have not, all the world knows they ought to have done; and the more shame for them […]

We have heard from a man who witnessed the failure of Miss Baillie’s ‘De Montford,’ notwithstanding the scenic advantages of a vast London theatre, fine dresses, fine music at intervals, and, above all, the superb acting of John Kemble, supported on that occasion by his incomparable sister, that this unexpected disappointment began with the gallery, […]

I have ever been disposed to regard as the most venial of deceptions such impositions as Chatterton had practised on the public credulity. Whom did he deceive? Nobody but those who well deserved to be deceived, viz., shallow antiquaries, who pretended to a sort of knowledge which they had not so much as tasted. And […]

You read in the Hebrew Scriptures of a man who had thirty sons, all of whom ‘rode on white asses’; the riding on white asses is a circumstance that expresses their high rank or distinction–that all were princes. In Syria, as in Greece and almost everywhere, white was the regal symbolic colour.[1] And any mode […]

The argument for the separation and distinct current of the Jews, flowing as they pretend of the river Rhone through the Lake of Geneva–never mixing its waters with those which surround it–has been by some infidel writers defeated and evaded by one word; and here, as everywhere else, an unwise teacher will seek to hide […]

1.–THE RHAPSODOI. The following on the ‘Rhapsodoi’ is a variation on that which appeared in ‘Homer and the Homeridae,’ with some quite additional and new thoughts on the subject. About these people, who they were, what relation they bore to Homer, and why they were called ‘Rhapsodoi,’ we have seen debated in Germany through the […]

It is true that Pilate could not be expected fully to comprehend an idea which was yet new to man; Christ’s words were beyond his depth. But, still, his natural light would guide him thus far–that, although he had never heard of any truth which rose to that distinction, still, if any one class of […]

Before any canon was settled, many works had become current in Christian circles whose origin was dubious. The traditions about them varied locally. Some, it is alleged, that would really have been entitled to a canonical place, had been lost by accident; to some, which still survived, this place had been refused upon grounds that […]

INTRODUCTION, WITH COMPLETE LIST OF THE ‘SUSPIRIA.’ The finale to the first part of the ‘Suspiria,’ as we find from a note of the author’s own, was to include ‘The Dark Interpreter,’ ‘The Spectre of the Brocken,’ and ‘Savannah-la-Mar.’ The references to ‘The Dark Interpreter’ in the latter would thus become intelligible, as the reader […]

The loveliest sight that a woman’s eye opens upon in this world is her first-born child; and the holiest sight upon which the eyes of God settle in Almighty sanction and perfect blessing is the love which soon kindles between the mother and her infant: mute and speechless on the one side, with no language […]

It is not for so idle a purpose as that of showing the Pagan backsliding–that is too evident–but for a far subtler purpose, and one which no man has touched, viz., the incapacity of creating grandeur for the Pagans, even with carte blanche in their favour, that I write this paper. Nothing is more incomprehensible […]

Ask any well-informed man at random what he supposes to have been done with the sacrifices, he will answer that really he never thought about it, but that naturally he supposes the flesh was burnt upon the altars. Not at all, reader; a sacrifice to the Gods meant universally a banquet to man. He who […]

Life, naturally the antagonism of Death, must have reacted upon Life according to its own development. Christianity having so awfully affected the [Greek: to] + of Death, this + must have reacted on Life. Hence, therefore, a phenomenon existing broadly to the human sensibility in these ages which for the Pagans had no existence whatever. […]

1.–DINNER. In London and other great capitals it is well known that new diseases have manifested themselves of late years: and more would be known about them, were it not for the tremulous delicacy which waits on the afflictions of the rich. We do not say this invidiously. It is right that such forbearance should […]

That which the tradition of the people is to the truth of facts–that is a mythus to the reasonable origin of things. [Transcriber’s Note: three dots in a vertical line above a tiny circle] These objects to an eye at [Transcriber’s Note: low tiny circle] might all melt into one another, as stars are confluent […]

(An Early Paper.) Of late the two names of Wordsworth and Southey have been coupled chiefly in the frantic philippics of Jacobins, out of revenge for that sublime crusade which, among the intellectual powers of Europe, these two eminent men were foremost (and for a time alone) in awakening against the brutalizing tyranny of France […]

To write his own language with propriety is the ambition of here and there an individual; to speak it with propriety is the ambition of multitudes. Amongst the qualifications for a public writer–the preliminary one of leisure is granted to about one man in three thousand; and, this being indispensable, there at once, for most […]

Now, observe what I am going to prove. First A, and as a stepping-stone to something (B) which is to follow: It is, that the Jewish Scriptures could not have been composed in any modern aera. I am earnest in drawing your attention to the particular point which I have before me, because one of […]

Look into the Acts of the Apostles, you see the wide dispersion of the Jews which had then been accomplished; a dispersion long antecedent to that penal dispersion which occurred subsequently to the Christian era. But search the pages of the wicked Jew, Josephus,[1] who notices expressly this universal dispersion of the Jews, and gives […]

If you are one that upon meditative grounds have come sincerely to perceive the philosophic value of this faith; if you have become sensible that as yet Christianity is but in its infant stages–after eighteen centuries is but beginning to unfold its adaptations to the long series of human situations, slowly unfolding as time and […]

The Romans, so far from looking with the Jews to the Tigris, looked to the Jews themselves. Or at least they looked to that whole Syria, of which the Jews were a section. Consequently, there is a solution of two points: 1. The wise men of the East were delegates from the trans-Tigridian people. 2. […]

It is by a continued secretion (so to speak) of all which forces itself to the surface of national importance in the way of patriotic services that the English peerage keeps itself alive. Stop the laurelled trophies of the noble sailor or soldier pouring out his heart’s blood for his country, stop the intellectual movement […]

The sincerity of an author sometimes borrows an advantageous illustration from the repulsiveness of his theme. That a subject is dull, however unfortunately it may operate for the impression which he seeks to produce, must at least acquit him of seeking any aid to that impression from alien and meretricious attractions. Is a subject hatefully […]

Review of Kant’s Essay on the Common Saying, that such and such a thing may be true in theory, but does not hold good in practice. What was the value of Kant’s essay upon this popular saying? Did it do much to clear up the confusion? Did it exterminate the vice in the language by […]

The ‘Essay on Criticism’ illustrates the same profound misconception of the principle working at the root of Didactic Poetry as operated originally to disturb the conduct of the ‘Essay on Man’ by its author, and to disturb the judgments upon it by its critics. This ‘Essay on Criticism’ no more aims at unfolding the grounds […]

I take the opportunity of referring to the work of a very eloquent Frenchman, who has brought the names of Wordsworth and Shakspeare into connection, partly for the sake of pointing out an important error in the particular criticism on Wordsworth, but still more as an occasion for expressing the gratitude due to the French […]

In attempting to appraise Mr. Finlay’s work comprehensively, there is this difficulty. It comes before us in two characters; first, as a philosophic speculation upon history, to be valued against others speculating on other histories; secondly, as a guide, practical altogether and not speculative, to students who are navigating that great trackless ocean the Eastern […]

One fault in Wordsworth’s ‘Excursion’ suggested by Coleridge, but luckily quite beyond all the resources of tinkering open to William Wordsworth, is–in the choice of a Pedlar as the presiding character who connects the shifting scenes and persons in the ‘Excursion.’ Why should not some man of more authentic station have been complimented with that […]

The assassination of Caesar, we find characterized in one of his latter works (Farbenlehre, Theil 2, p. 126) by Goethe, as ‘die abgeschmackteste That die jemals begangen worden‘–the most outrageously absurd act that ever was committed. Goethe is right, and more than right. For not only was it an atrocity so absolutely without a purpose […]

(Supplementary To Published Essay.) Some little official secrets we learn from the correspondence of Cicero as Proconsul of Cilicia.[1] And it surprises us greatly to find a man, so eminently wise in his own case, suddenly turning romantic on behalf of a friend. How came it–that he or any man of the world should fancy […]

(May, 1822.) In revolutionary times, as when a civil war prevails in a country, men are much worse, as moral beings, than in quiet and untroubled states of peace. So much is matter of history. The English, under Charles II., after twenty years’ agitation and civil tumults; the Romans after Sylla and Marius, and the […]

I. The Main Subject Opened. What is Chronology, and how am I to teach it? The what is poorly appreciated, and chiefly through the defects of the how. Because it is so ill-taught, therefore in part it is that Chronology is so unattractive and degraded. Chronology is represented to be the handmaid of history. But […]

Some time back I published in this journal a little paper on the Californian madness–for madness I presumed it to be, and upon two grounds. First, in so far as men were tempted into a lottery under the belief that it was not a lottery; or, if it really were such, that it was a […]

Using a New Testament, of which (in the narrative parts at least) any one word being given will suggest most of what is immediately consecutive, you evade the most irksome of the penalties annexed to the first breaking ground in a new language: you evade the necessity of hunting up and down a dictionary. Your […]

By way of Counsel to Adults who are hesitating as to the Propriety of Studying the Greek Language with a view to the Literature; and by way of consolation to those whom circumstances have obliged to lay aside that plan. No. I. No question has been coming up at intervals for reconsideration more frequently than […]

Oh name of Coleridge, that hast mixed so much with the trepidations of our own agitated life, mixed with the beatings of our love, our gratitude, our trembling hope; name destined to move so much of reverential sympathy and so much of ennobling strife in the generations yet to come, of our England at home, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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; […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]