earliest (without one exception) of all who came forward, in the beginning of his career, to honor and welcome him, shrank with disgust from making any sentence of mine the occasion for an explosion of vulgar malice against him. But the grandeur of the passage here cited inevitably spoke for itself; and he that would have been most scornful on hearing the name of the poet coupled with this epithet of 'great' could not but find his malice intercepted, and himself cheated into cordial admiration, by the splendor of the verses."-De Quincey's note in enlarged Confessions (Collected Writings, ed. Masson, 3:439). 1076a. 5. Objective. "This word, so nearly unintelligible in 1821, so intensely scholastic, and, consequently, when surrounded by ra miliar and vernacular words, so apparently pedantic, yet, on the other hand, so indispensable to accurate thinking, and to wide thinking, has since 1821 become too common to need any apology."-De Quincey's note in enlarged Confessions (Collected Writings, ed. Masson, 3:440). Cf. the following passage from Ruskin's Modern Painters, Part IV, ch. 12, "Of the Pathetic Fallacy," sec. 1: "German dulness and English affectation have of late much multiplied among us the use of two of the most objectionable words that were ever coined by the troublesomeness of metaphysicians, namely, Objective and Subjective. No words can be more exquisitely, and in all points, useless; and I merely speak of them that I may, at once and forever, get them out of my way, and out of my reader's." 1078a. 57. The original manuscript contained at this point the following passage: "This dream at first brought tears to one who had been long familiar only with groans: but afterwards it fluctuated and grew unsteady: the passions and the scenery changed countenance, and the whole was transposed into another key. Its variations, though interesting, I must omit. "At length I grew afraid to sleep, and I shrunk from it as from the most savage torture. Often I fought with my drowsiness, and kept it aloof by sitting up the whole night and following day. Sometimes I lay down only in the daytime: and sought to charm away the phantoms by requesting my family to sit around me and to talk: hoping thus to derive an influence from what affected me externally into my internal world of shadows: but, far from this, I infected and stained as it were the whole of my waking experience with feelings derived from sleep. I seemed indeed to live and to converse even when awake with my visionary companions much more than with the realities of life. 'Oh, X, what do you see? dear X, what is it that you see?' was the constant exclamation of Margaret], by which I was awakened as soon as I had fallen asleep, though to me it seemed as if I had slept for years. My groans had, it seems, wakened her, and, from her account, they had commenced immediately on my falling asleep. "The following dream, as an impressive one to me, I shall close with: it grew up under the influence of that misery which I have described above as resulting from the almost paralytic incapacity to do anything towards completing my intellectual labors, combined with a belief which at the time I reasonably entertained that I should soon be called on to quit forever this world and those for whom I still clung to it."-Quoted by Garnett in his edition of the Confessions, 263. Margaret was De Quincey's wife. 1079b. 11. I triumphed. This was true when the Confessions was first written in 1821; but De Quincey later suffered prostrations under the influence of opium, notably in 1823-24 and in 1841-44. 1080a. 20. The Confessions closes with an Appendix, in which De Quincey rather apologizes for conveying the impression that he had wholly renounced the use of opium. ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE IN MACBETH "The little paper On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth is interesting in several ways. It is a classical instance of the peculiar faculty of discovering hidden analogies of which De Quincey boasts; like Lamb's essay on the tragedies of Shakspere considered as to their fitness for stage representation, it is an early note of the great burden of rational Shakspere appreciation that took its rise, in England, in the lectures of Coleridge; and it is a contribution from one who does not rank among the great commentators upon the Elizabethan drama, which no such commentator can afford to neglect. There is, in fact, no part of De Quincey's additions to literature in which he has more clearly redeemed for all time a bit of the unknown."Turk, in Introduction to Selections from De Quincey (Ath. Press ed.), page 1. For another example of the same kind of writing see the Postscript to On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (Collected Writings, ed. Masson, 13:70). 1103. THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH "This little paper, according to my original intention, formed part of the Suspiria de Profundis, from which, for a momentary purpose, I did not scruple to detach it, and to publish it apart, as sufficiently intelligible even when dislocated from its place in a larger whole. To my surprise, however, one or two critics, not carelessly in conversation, but deliberately in print, professed their inability to apprehend the meaning of the whole, or to follow the links of the connection between its several parts. I am myself as little able to understand where the difficulty lies, or to detect any lurking obscurity, as these critics found themselves to unravel my logic. Possibly I may not be an indifferent and neutral judge in such a case. I will therefore sketch a brief abstract of the little paper according to my original design, and then leave the reader to judge how far this design is kept in sight through the actual execution. "Thirty-seven years ago, or rather more, accident made me, in the dead of night, and of a night memorably solemn, the solitary witness of an appalling scene, which threatened instant death in a shape the most terrific to two young people whom I had no means of assisting, except in so far as I was able to give them a most hurried warning of their danger; but even that not until they stood within the very shadow of the catastrophe, being divided from the most frightful of deaths by scarcely more, if more at all, then seventy seconds. "Such was the scene, such in its outline, from which the whole of this paper radiates as a natural expansion. This scene is circumstantially narrated in Section the Second, entitled "The Vision of Sudden Death.' "But a movement of horror, and of spontaneous recoil from this dreadful scene, naturally carried the whole of that scene, raised and idealized, into my dreams, and very soon into a rolling succession of dreams. The actual scene, as looked down upon from the box of the mail, was transformed into a dream, as tumultuous and changing as a musical fugue. This troubled dream is circumstantially reported in Section the Third, entitled 'Dream-Fugue on the theme of Sudden Death.' What I had beheld from my seat upon the mail, the scenical strife of action and passion, of anguish and fear, as I had there wit nessed them moving in ghostly silence, this duel between life and death narrowing itself to a point of such exquisite evanescence as the collision neared: all these elements of the scene blended, under the law of association, with the previous and permanent features of distinction investing the mail itself; which features at that time lay-1st, in velocity unprecedented; 2dly, in the power and beauty of the horses; 3dly, in the official connection with the government of a great nation; and, 4thly, in the function, almost a consecrated function, of publishing and diffusing through the land the great political events, and especially the great battles, during a conflict of unparalleled grandeur. These honorary distinctions are all described circumstantially in the First or introductory Section ("The Glory of Motion'). The three first were distinctions maintained at all times; but the fourth and grandest belonged exclusively to the war with Napoleon; and this it was which most naturally introduced Waterloo into the dream. Waterloo, I understand, was the particular feature of the 'Dream-Fugue' which my censors were least able to account for. Yet surely Waterloo, which, in common with every other great battle, it had been our special privilege to publish over all the land, most naturally entered the dream under the license of our privilege. If not-if there be anything amiss -let the Dream be responsible. The Dream is a law to itself; and as well quarrel with a rainbow for showing or for not showing, a secondary arch. So far as I know, every element in the shifting movements of the Dream derived itself either primarily from the incidents of the actual scene, or from secondary features associated with the mail. For example, the cathedral aisle derived itself from the mimic combination of features which grouped themselves together at the point of approaching collision-viz., an arrow-like section of the road, six hundred yards long, under the solemn lights described, with lofty trees meeting overhead in arches. The guard's horn, again—a humble instrument in itself— was yet glorified as the organ of publication for so many great national events. And the incident of the Dying Trumpeter, who rises from a marble bas-relief, and carries a marble trumpet to his marble lips for the purpose of warning the female infant, was doubtless secretly suggested by my own imperfect effort to seize the guard's horn, and to blow the warning blast. But the Dream knows best; and the Dream, I say again, is the responsible party."-De Quincey, in Preface to the volume of his Collected Writings (1854) containing The English Mail-Coach. It is printed by Masson as the Author's Postscript (Collected Writings, 13:328-30). 1106a. 28 ff. "This paragraph is a caricature of a story told in Staunton's Account of the Earl of Macartney's Embassy to China in 1792." -Masson's note in Collected Writings, 13:277. The account was published in 1797. EBENEZER ELLIOTT (1781-1849), p. 1165 EDITIONS 1109a. 22. "Tallyho" or "Highflyer."—A tallyho was a kind of four-in-hand pleasure coach, so called from a popular coach named "The Tallyho." A highflyer was a fast stage coach. 1121a. 49-50. Lilliputian Lancaster.-Lancaster, Works, 2 vols., ed. by his son E. Elliott (London, the county seat of Lancashire, was much smaller than Liverpool or Manchester, both situated in the same county. JOHN DYER (1701-1758), p. 16 EDITIONS Poems, ed., with a Biographical Introduction, by E. Thomas (Welsh Library ed.: London, Unwin, 1903). BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM King, 1876). BIOGRAPHY Howitt, W.: Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets, 2 vols. (London, 1847, 1856; Routledge, 1894; New York, Dutton). Phillips, G. S. ("J. Searle"): Memoirs of Ebenezer Elliott (London, Gilpin, 1850). Smiles, S.: Brief Biographies (Boston, Ticknor, 1860). Watkins, J.: Life, Poety, and Letters of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-Law Rhymer (London, Mortimer, 1850). CRITICISM "Corn-Law Rhymes," The Edinburgh Review, July, 1832 (55:338); Critical and Miscellaneous Esasys, 3 vols. (Boston, Houghton, 1880). Dowden, E. : In Ward's The English Poets, Vol. Carlyle, T.: Fox, W. J.: The Westminster Review (30:187). Hall, S. C. and Mrs. S. C.: "Memories of the Authors of the Age," The Eclectic Magazine, Nov., 1865 (65:573). Stoddard, R. H.: Under the Evening Lamp (New York, Scribner, 1892; London, Gay). Wilson, John: "Poetry of Ebenezer Elliott," Blackwood's Magazine, May, 1834, 35:815). since. 30 "Grongar Hill is the happiest of his pro- God heard; but they heard not: God sent down ductions: it is not indeed very accurately written; but the scenes which it displays are so pleasing, the images which they raise so welcome to the mind, and the reflections of the writer so consonant to the general sense or experience of mankind, that when it is once read, it will be read again."-Johnson, in "Dyer," The Lives of the English Poets (1779-81). Grongar Hill is a hill in southwestern Wales. With respect to title and subject matter the poem is similar to Sir John Denham's Cooper's Hill (1642). bread; They took it, kept it all, and cried for more, Hollowing both hands to catch and clutch the "No man could be more happy than Elliott in a green lane; though an indefatigable and successful man of business, he devoutly and devotedly loved Nature. If absolutely rabid when he wrote of the 'tax-fed aristocracy'-sententious, bitter, sarcastic, loud with his pen in hand and class sympathies and antipathies for his inspirationall evil thoughts evaporated when communing in the woods and fields with the God by whom the woods and fields were made; among them his spirit was as fresh and gentle as the dew by which they were nourished."—S. C. Hall, in Retrospect of a Long Life (1883). From his bold and vigorous attack upon the Corn Laws, which placed restrictions upon the grain trade, Elliott won the name of "The CornLaw Rhymer." A volume of his verse, published in 1831, was entitled Corn-Law Rhymes. It was inscribed to "all who revere the memory of Jeremy Bentham, wise to promote the greatest happiness to the greatest number for the greatest length of time." Bentham was an English utilitarian pbilosopher (1748-1832). History of the Commonwealth of England, 4 vols. (London, Colburn, 1824-28). BIOGRAPHY Brailsford, H. N.: Shelley, Godwin, and their Circle (Home University Library: New York, Holt, 1913; London, Williams). Gourg, R.: William Godwin, sa vie, ses œuvres principales (Paris, Alcan, 1908). Paul, C. K.: William Godwin, his Friends and Contemporaries, 2 vols. (London, Paul, 1876; Boston, Roberts). Ramus, P.: William Godwin der Theoretiker des Kommunistischen Anarchismus, Eine biographische Studie mit Anzügen aus seiner Scriften (Leipsig. Dietrich, 1907). Simon, Helene : William Godwin und Mary Wollstonecraft (München, Beck, 1909). De CRITICISM Quincey, T.: Literary Reminiscences (1859); Collected Writings, ed. Masson (London, Black, 1889-90; 1896-97), 11, 326. Dowden, E.: "Theorists of Revolution," The French Revolution and English Literature (New York, Scribner, 1897, 1908). Harper, G. M.: "Rousseau, Godwin, and Wordsworth," The Atlantic Monthly, May, 1912 (109:639). Hazlitt, W.: Contributions to The Edinburgh Review, April, 1830; The Spirit of the Age (London, 1825); Collected Works, ed. Waller and Glover (London, Dent, 1902-06; New York, McClure), 10, 385; 4. 200. Rogers, A. K.: "Godwin and Political Justice," The International Journal of Ethics, Oct., 1911 (22:50). Saitzeff, H.: William Godwin und die Anfänge des Anarchismus im XVIII Jahrhundert (Berlin, Haering, 1907). Shelley, P. B. : Letters, 2 vols., ed. by R. Ingpen (London, Pitman, 1909, 1912; New York, Scribner). Stephen, L.: "Godwin and Shelley," Hours in a Library, 3 vols. (London, Smith, 1874-79; New York and London, Putnam, 1899); 4 vols. (1907). Stephen, L.: History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 2 vols. (London, Smith, 1876, 1902; New York, Putnam, 1902). Stephen, L.: "William Godwin's Novels," Studies of a Biographer, 4 vols. (London, Duckworth, 1898-1902; New York, Putnam). CRITICAL NOTES "More than any English thinker, he [Godwin] resembles in intellectual temperament those French theorists who represented the early revolutionary WILLIAM GODWIN (1756-1836), p. 213 impulse. His doctrines are developed with a log EDITIONS An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 2 vols. (1793, 1796; London, Sonnenschein, 1890; New York, Scribner). Caleb Williams, or Things as They Are, 3 vols. (1794) 1 vol. (London, Newnes, n. d.; New York, Scribner, 1904). ical precision which shrinks from no consequences, and which placidly ignores all inconvenient facts. The Utopia in which his imagination delights is laid out with geometrical symmetry and simplicity. Godwin believes as firmly as any early Christian in the speedy revelation of a new Jerusalem, foursquare and perfect in its plan. Godwin's intellectual genealogy may be traced to three sources. From Swift, Mandeville,2 and the Latin historian, he had learnt to regard the whole body of ancient institutions as corrupt; from Humeʻ and Hartley, of whom he speaks with enthusiasm, he derives the means of assault upon the old theories; from the French writers, such as Rousseau, Helvetius, and Holbach," he caught, as he tells us, the contagion of revolutionary zeal. The Political Justice is an attempt to frame into a systematic whole the principles gathered from these various sources, and may be regarded as an exposition of the extremest form of revolutionary dogma. Though Godwin's idiosyncrasy is perceptible in some of the conclusions, the book is instructive, as showing, with a clearness paralleled in no other English writing, the true nature of those principles which excited the horror of Burke and the Conservatives."-Leslie Stephen, in History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876). Godwin's revolutionary zeal fired the enthusiasm of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and especially Shelley. Numerous instances of that influence may be observed in their writings. As a contrast to Godwin's ideas on the French Revolution, see Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (p. 1186). The text here followed is that of the 1796 American edition, a reprint of the second London edition. In editions subsequent to the first edition of the Enquiry (1793), Godwin's radicalism was slightly tempered. THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771), p. 57 EDITIONS Works, 4 vols., ed. by E. Gosse (London, Macmillan, 1884). Poetical Works, ed. by J. Bradshaw (Aldine ed.: London, Bell, 1891; New York, Macmillan). English Poems, ed. by D. C. Tovey (Cambridge University Press, 1898). Poems, with Collins (London, Newnes, 1905; New York, Scribner). Selections from the Poetry and Prose, ed. by W. L. Phelps (Athenæum Press ed.: Ginn, Boston, 1894). Letters, 2 vols., ed. by D. C. Tovey (Bohn Library ed. London, Bell, 1900-04; New York, Macmillan). Essays and Criticisms, ed., with an Introduction, by C. S. Northrup (Belles Lettres Series: Boston, Heath, 1911). BIOGRAPHY Gosse, E.: Gray (English Men of Letters Series: London, Macmillan, 1882; New York, Harper). 1 Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), a noted English satirist. 2 Bernard Mandeville (c1670-1733), a Dutch English writer. Tacitus (c55-118), who describes the century preceding his own as degenerate. David Hume (1711-76), a noted Scottish philosopher and historian. 5 David Hartley (d. 1757), an English materialistic philosopher. Rousseau, Helvetius, and Holbach were noted French philosophers of the 18th century. Johnson, S.: The Lives of the English Poets (177981); ed. by G. B. Hill, 3 vols. (London, Claren don Press, 1905). Norton, C. E.: The Poet Gray as a Naturalist (Boston, Goodspeed, 1903). Rawnsley, H. D.: "Gray's Visit to Keswick," Literary Associations of the English Lakes, 2 vols. (Glasgow, MacLehose, 1906). Tovey, D. C.: Gray and his Friends (Cambridge University Press, 1890). CRITICISM Arnold, M.: In Ward's The English Poets, Vol. 3 (London and New York, Macmillan, 1880, 1909); Essays in Criticism, Second Series (London and New York, Macmillan, 1888). Beers, H. A.: "The Miltonic Group," A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century (New York, Holt, 1898, 1910). Benson, A. C.: Essays (London, Heinemann, 1895; New York, Dutton). Brooke, S. A.: "From Pope to Cowper," Theology in the English Poets (London, King, 1874; New York, Dutton, 1910). Miscellaneous Prose Works, Vol. 1 (New York, Harper, 1868). Dobson, Austin: "Gray's Library," Eighteenth Century Vignettes, First Series (London, Bulwer, E. (Lord Lytton) : Chatto, 1892). Hazlitt, W. C.: “On Swift, Young, Gray, Collins, etc.," Lectures on the English Poets (London, 1818); Collected Works, ed. Waller and Glover (London, Dent, 1902-06; New York, McClure), 5, 104. Hudson, W. H.: Gray and His Poetry (New York, Jack, A. A.: “Gray (Social or Prose Poetry)", Shairp, J. C.: "Nature in Collins, Gray, Gold- "Thomas Gray's Interest in Celtic," Modern Philology, April, 1914 (11:559). Stephen, L.: "Gray and his School," Hours in a Library, 3 vols. (London, Smith, 1874-79; New York and London, Putnam, 1899); 4 vols. (1907). Walker, H.: The English Essay and Essayists Warren, T. H.: "Letters of Thomas Gray," The |