THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. JULY AND OCTOBER, 1863. VOL. XXXVIII. LONDON: JACKSON, WALFORD, & HODDER, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT. GLASGOW J. MACLEHOSE.-DUBLIN: J. ROBERTSON, CONTENTS OF No. LXXV. PAGE The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of IV. 1. Bacon's Essays and Colours of Good and Evil. With Notes and The New Forest; its History and its Scenery. By JOHN R. VII. 1. Le Moniteur Universel, Le Journal des Débats, Le Siècle, La Patrie, La Presse, L'Opinion Nationale, Le Constitutionnel, La France, L'Union, Le Temps, La Gazette de France, La Gazette des Tribunaux, Le Droit, Le Courrier du Dimanche, Le Nord, Galignani's Messenger, L'Esprit Public, Vert Vert, Figaro Programme, L'Orchestre, Le Figaro, Le Charivari, Le Sport, Le Journal Amusant, Le Harneton, Le Passe-Temps, Le Petit Journal pour Rire, Journal de Jeudi, Roger Bon Temps, Le Siècle Illustré, Le Roman, Le Tintamarre, Le Boulevard, Le Petit Journal Quotidien, Paris Journaliste. 2. Les Grands Journaux de France, 1863. 3. Physionomie de la Presse. Par UN CHIFFONIER. 10. Les Elections de 1863. Par PRÉVOST PARADOL. 11. Une Fusion Légitimiste Orleaniste et Républicaine. Par E. 126 ART. The Naturalist on the River Amazons: a Record of Eleven Years' Residence and Travel under the Equator. By HENRY WAL- IX. 1. The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined. 2. Introduction to the Old Testament. Three Vols. By SAMUEL 3. Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. By A. P. 4. The Bible; its Form and Substance: Three Sermons preached before the University of Oxford. By A. P. STANLEY, D.D. 5. The Claims of the Bible and of Science: Correspondence between a Layman and Rev. F. D. Maurice . X. 1. Peace the Sole Chance now left for Reunion: a Letter, &c. By JOHN L. O'SULLIVAN, late Minister of the United States to 2. The Proposed Slave Empire; its Antecedents, Constitution, and 3. Recognition: a Chapter from the History of the North American and South American States. By F. W. GIBBES. 4. The Present American Revolution: the Internal Condition of PAGE THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW. JULY 1, 1863. ART. I.-The Works of Thomas De Quincey. Author's Edition. Fifteen Vols. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black. 1862-3. THOMAS DE QUINCEY, the English Opium-eater, was born at Greenhays, near Manchester, in 1785. His father was a moderately opulent foreign merchant, of such extremely delicate health that he was seldom able to reside in England, but passed most of his time in Portugal and in the West Indies. His mother appears to have been a woman of deep and sincere piety, not untinged by severity; eminently a lady, thoroughly educated, and well fitted by nature and habit to make up to her large family the loss they suffered in the almost constant absence of paternal care. Greenhays was then country. Where are now crowded streets and many-windowed factories, tall chimneys and superabundance of smoke and dust, were then smiling hedgerows and green fields, and pleasant gardens and country houses. During De Quincey's infancy his elder brother was from home, while his younger brothers were not yet born; and he tells us, accordingly, that if, like the Emperor Marcus Aurelius-whose 'Thoughts' we recently commended to our readers—he should return thanks to Providence for all the separate blessings of his ' early situation, he would single out as worthy of special commemoration that he lived in a rustic solitude; that this solitude 'was in England; that his infant feelings were moulded by the 'gentlest of sisters, and not by horrid, pugilistic brothers; and finally, that he and they were dutiful and loving members of a pure, holy, and magnificent Church.' That he was a child of some peculiarities and difficulties of temperament, as well as of exquisite and intense sensibilities, no one who knows how NO. LXXV. B |