opinion of many competent critics, Thomas de Quincey ranks amongst the foremost of Englikh prose writers, His style is constantly held up us @ model. His learning was vast, and his. general power of mind is proved by the number of questions he discussed with energy and insight. His love of dazzling paradoxes often misled hin, but few men equalled him in Incid statement, in subtle argument and in impassioned but not turgid bursts of eloquence. Admitting all this, however, we are struck with the fact that De Quincoy's treatment of a political question is strangely different from the treatment which topics of high national importance receive now, from journalists and pamphleteers; and we confess that, in oar judgment, great as the English Opium-eater was in the main, we are gainers by the change, There is probably nota man on the staff of the Times or the Pall Mall Gazette who could write the "Glory of Motion," or "The Cxsats," or the paper on " Marder considered as one of the fine Arts;" but neither would any of these publicists venture to uso the language De Quincey eu
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.