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problems are finer and more ingenious, or, what is more, whose conclusions are more distinct and trustworthy than De Quincey's. He reminds us here, both in matter and in manner, of Coleridge-whom, indeed, in the main, he resembled more than he resembled any other of his predecessors; and we would say of him, as we would say of Coleridge, that whoever is investigating any question ought to make a point of seeing whether this thinker has said anything about it-confident that, if he has, he has gone into the very crevices of the subject, and made deep and exquisite incisions in the right direction. In all matters relating, in particular, to literary criticism, and the philosophy of style and literature, De Quincey, like Coleridge, is masterly; and his essays on such subjects are worth a score of the older English treatises on Rhetoric. Nor, though De Quincey's method is subtle, are his conclusions unsound or merely ingenious. His" Letters to a young man whose education has been neglected" are replete with good sense, and are about the wisest advices on the subject of literary culture we have ever read. III. Imaginative Prose-Writings. De Quincey claimed to be a practitioner of a style of imaginative and rhythmical, or highly impassioned prose, of which, in universal literature, there had been few precedents; and, as examples of such prose-poetry, he pointed to passages in his “Confessions of an Opium-Eater," and still

more confidently to his "Suspiria de Profundis." There is no doubt that he was right, and that from these and other writings of De Quincey specimens may be cited of what may be called prose-rhapsody or rich and weirdly prose-phantasy, such as can be cited from no other English prose-writer. Nor, whatever may be the intrinsic value of this style of writing, is that value abated by the fact that De Quincey, as a critic of his own writings, was aware of the peculiarity of this portion of them.

All in all, since Coleridge s death, we know of no English writer, speculative in the cast of his genius, without being expressly systematic, whose remains are a more valuable bequest to British literature than those of De Quincey. He died in the same year with Lord Macaulay; and, while all Britain was ringing with proclamations of the national loss sustained by Lord Macaulay's death, the sole tribute to poor old De Quincey was the tribute of a few short and scattered obituary notices in the newspapers. The difference was proper as regarded the relative social importance of the two lives. And yet, perhaps, the worth of Lord Macaulay's literary remains, as compared with those of De Quincey, is as the worth of some highly burnished mass of a metal of gold and copper mixed, compared with the worth of an equal mass of pure white silver worked into foliage and frosted filagree.

MESSRS. TRUBNER & Co. have just ready M. libraries of Normandy are possessed of most valFrolich's" Lord's Prayer" (with an etched dedi-uable collections of ancient documents, not a few cation plate and prefatory plate and ten etched of them relating to the early connection between designs illustrative of the text), dedicated to the France and England. Princess Alexandra. In all these designs the subject proper is combined with arabesques of appropriate foliage. Thus, in the Lord's Prayer, the pimpernel and small corn-flower frame the design for "Give us this day our daily bread;" the palms of triumphant beatitude support the design for "Thy kingdom come;" thorns and brambles hedge in the designs appropriated to the averting temptation and the deliverance from evil. The plates are exquisitely executed from graceful designs.

A LITERARY association, under the title of "Society of Norman Bibliophiles," has just been established at Rouen. Its object is to collect and print rare works and manuscripts relating to Normandy. It is stated that many of the private

THE long-expected correspondence of Goethe with Duke Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar, containing, it is stated, matter of the very highest interest, is now definitely announced to appear at the beginning of June. The work will be in two volumes, published by Voigt and Gunther, Leipzig.

THE flint-hatchet difficulty is at last settled. A popular curate in Hertfordshire, in a lecture lately on the connection between geology and the Bible, said that these flint hatchets had been a difficulty to some people, but for his part he had not the slightest difficulty in the matter; he had no doubt that they were made by the Fallen Angels.

From The Saturday Review, 23 May.
THE ENGLISH COURT.

of art, and the delights of form and color, as accessories-could enhance the effect, we LONDON saw a very strange sight last Satur- have them. The gay clothing, the blazing day. It saw carriage after carriage of ladies, jewelry, the personal grace of Orientals old and young, in the brightest and gayest would be eclipsed by the splendor of English dresses possible, waiting quietly in a block dresses and the loveliness of English faces. far away towards Kensington and Regent's The respectful homage which Orientals pay Park, in order that, at the end of a May to their sovereign is repeated in England, spring afternoon, they might reach the Pal- but it has the additional worth of a selface of St. James. There they sat, like sheep respect felt by those who pay it, and of the decked out for a sacrifice, smiling vaguely on genuine emotion of affection and regard which the crowds that stared at them, bleating per- an English sovereign awakens so casily. A haps in an undertone to each other, but with-drawing-room might be a delight to the eye, out power to move, losing gradually, first pa- and a gratification to the sense of beauty and tience, and then hope. These ladies were all perfection—a link between the sovereign and going to court, and this is what going to the subject, and a tribute to the excellence of court is practically like in England. They English charms. It is a crash, a dim battle were the flower of beauty and wealth and of worn-out sufferers, an ugly, heart-rending fashion, on their way to pay their first hom- disappointment. age to a bride. At last, after hours of ex- The fact is, that the times have changed, haustion, they reached the dingy, shabby and the habits of the people are changed, but little mansion where it is the fancy of English the ways of the court have remained the sovereigns to receive their subjects. They same A hundred years ago, the Palace of had then to squeeze, and to be squeezed, to St. James's suited the sovereigns of the house lose temper and finery, to vent their feelings of Hanover very well. They saw a limited in those looks of fire which are to women a number of people, and saw them in a friendly facile substitute for oaths. They had to fight way. They knew something of the history as the wild eager outlaws from society fight of those presented to them, and were not to get a good place at an execution, and at above a taste for the gossip and scandal of last they reached the presence of the Princess. an idle, sociable circle. They were like a She, too, shared the pleasures of an English family great enough to go on in their own Court Reception. She had to stand bowing way, and to expect that their neighbors for hours until at last she could stand no lon- should be pleased to drop in upon them. ger. Etiquette tried to turn out nature with The days of the court pageantry which suited a fork, but nature came back. This was what the tastes brought with them by the Stuarts all the state and ceremony and wealth and from the old connection of Scotland with loveliness of England ended in. It is only France, were no objects of envy to royalty in England that could have had so much to the early days of the Georges. Royalty had throw away, and only England that would have come from Germany, and in Germany royalty thrown it away. There could scarcely be any considers that the truly royal thing is to be sight more beautiful than the sight of an Eng- simply the first family in the country-the lish drawing-room as it might be; and there richest, and the best-born and the most powis scarcely any sight so aggravating and ludi- erful, but still perhaps one of the homeliest, crous as an English drawing-room as it is. simply because a family that is past rivalry The spectacle of an Eastern durbar has ap- is past affectation. The fashion in such matpealed to the imagination and gratified the ters was soon set; and England was quite taste of every successive generation of Eng- content that its sovereigns should keep court lishmen in India. The harmony of colors, as German princes are wont to do. So St. the blaze of jewels, the repose and dignity of James's was pronounced to do very well. The those there, the quiet, the order, the gran- aristocracy and a few adroit people at the top deur of the whole, have never failed to charm of professions made their way into the presthose who have seen the spectacle. But Eng- ence of the king and queen, and ate and land could gather a durbar of which India chatted with them, as in these days country has never dreamed. If vast halls, and mag- neighbors eat and chat in the great house of nificence, and palatial state-if the treasures the district. Those old days are gone by,

and the court has changed in some degree, and its relations to the people have also changed. There is no longer a small privileged set which is born to go to court, and which alone presumes to go there. Now, every lady goes that is a little ambitious and can afford the dress. England is much more before the world; and a royal spectacle is a matter of far more than local interest. The sovereign is now the head of the nation, and, in matters of show and magnificence is to a great extent expected to lead the nation and represent it properly. The court and the upper society of England is daily more and more brought into intimate relations with the courts and the society of continental capitals; and although there is little of the old familiarity which was natural in the meetings of members of small circles in frequent communication with each other, yet there is a much more extended acquaintanceship than there used to be, and the court is looked to as a basis for this widely spread connection. The court has more to do than formerly, and has to do it for people who are not nearly so intimately bound up with its daily life.

should scarcely wish to encourage this passion for going to court in people who have no official reason for going, and who have not been born in the court circles. It lowers the

sition of the sovereign that royalty should be treated as it was in Paris, when the citizenking was expected to behave as a citizen to his fellow-citizens. Nor is it by any means a duty to encourage the abandonment of the old distinctions of station, the love for show, the silly pretences involved in a general rush to court of nobodies-of ladies who are not in court circles, nor the wives or daughters of distinguished men. It is a very moderate estimate to say that at least a fourth of those who go would be much better at home. Even if the sovereign is not entitled actually to exclude them, the sovereign is not bound to facilitate their trying to blow themselves out to the size of the proper court visitor. Many families, perhaps, will date the beginning of the pretensions that will harass and cripple them for years, from the evil day when vanity prompted the desire to sit in one of those blocked carriages, and fight in that disastrous crush. The conservatism of the English court in this respect has therefore not been without its use and its justification. Only the time has come when things cannot go on as they are. It may be desirable that the English court should forego some of the magnificence which it could so easily command. Some sort of check may be pardonably imposed on presentations by hundreds and hundreds at a time. But it is a great pity that the business should be done so absurdly ill as at present. These are not bad times for royalty, and especially for royalty in England; and the little drawbacks of happy times must be taken with the advantages. It is a drawback on being lovable and pretty and good, that the world likes to look at you sometimes when you had much rather not have the bore of being looked at. It would

And yet drawing-rooms are still held at St. James's and ladies are crushed and worried to death, and royal brides fatigued to exhaustion, rather than change the manners with the times, and listen to the whisperings of common sense and the dictates of a proper pride. But it must not be supposed that the English court acts without a settled purpose, or without reasons entitled to considerable weight. The court clings, at the cost of all this inconvenience, to old customs, because they are linked with something which it is thought ought not to pass away. The royal family has lived for a century and a half in England on the plan of German royalty. It has been simply a family, but a royal one, and the only exception is certainly not one to make it seem very desirable to abandon the old order for a new one. The court of the re-be pleasanter, perhaps, to have the glory gency was of the sort of brilliancy which is and the respect of royalty without the duties not liked by the English court or the Eng- often so unavoidably tedious. But it cannot lish people. It might not be safe to change. be; and an English sovereign has, if duty The constitution, to say the least, harmonizes is done, a very busy time of it. It is now a very well with the German theory of royal piece of necessary business to arrange the life. It might not be quite so well if our drawing-room properly, and a very little consovereign were like the sovereign of the sideration, once for all, and a very little exTuileries, and spent millions in state shows tra trouble every summer would suffice to and in fites and pageants for the world. And carry out all that is wanted.

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From The Reader.

A CONFEDERATE APOCALYPSE.

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reasonableness reflect so much credit upon his discernment that it is a pity to find them coupled with a strong opinion that the North would never dare to engage in hostilites at all-a conviction which underlies the whole book.

should take place immediately upon the anticipated election of Mr. Lincoln. But there are, unfortunately, numerous "submissionAnticipations of the Future, to Serve as Lesin the South-souls so mean and dassons for the Present Time. In the Form of Extracts of Letters from an English Resi- tardly as to be positively unwilling to take dent in the United States to the London up arms against their countrymen till they Times," from 1864 to 1870. With an Ap- have received some injury at their hands. pendix on the Causes and Consequences of Magnanimously according these mean spirits the Independence of the South. (Richmond, eight years to arrive at a sense of propriety, Va., 1860.) he fixes the meeting of the secessionist conAMID the emotions produced by the intel-vention at Atlanta, Ga., for January 20, ligence now in course of transmission from 1868. Always, be it remembered, under America, it might appear almost preposterous protest. And, in fact, his views of Southern to bestow any attention on an attempt to forecast the lineaments of the Great Civil War on a scale as petty as if it rather concerned the squabbles of two principalities than the destinies of two continents. Yet this singular work before us deserves notice, both as a curiosity and as a valuable testimony to the Let us suppose ourselves, then, promoted motives and feelings which impelled the to A.D. 1868, and able to bestow a hasty Southern Americans to a conflict of the ex- glance on the path by which we have travtent and seriousness of which they had evi- elled to Secessia. President Lincoln, it seems, dently a very inadequate conception. Pub- was elected in 1860" by a small majority. lished in June, 1860, six months before the Public indignation would not permit a Southsecession of South Carolina, the book is a de- ern vote to be offered for him "-a pretty liberate anticipation of the step, and a minute comment on freedom of election south of Madetail of its progress and results as visible to son and Dixon. It is interesting to observe the prophetic eye of a fanatic and exasperated the improvement in the president's appearSoutherner. The writer, however, is evi- ance when brought into the light of prophecy. dently a man of intelligence and cultivation," He was courteous to all, conciliatory to his accustomed to political life, of mature years personal enemies, and did not show any re-he remembers the blockade of 1812-15-sentment against those who had been his and of good standing among his countrymen, loudest vilifiers. . . . His policy and adminas may be inferred from the fact that his istration were praiseworthy, and respected pendix is reprinted from " De Bow's Review," for probity, wisdom, and firmness. . . . He almost the only respectable literary organ maintained the dignity of the Government they possess. The machinery employed is abroad and its respectability at home." So, unexceptionable enough, being neither vision at last, we have found a Southerner speaking nor trance, but simply the correspondence of well of President Lincoln. But the serpent an imaginary Times reporter at Washington. entered Eden in the shape of President SewHad we seen this volume on its first appear-ard, elected in 1864. The first step of the ance, we might have objected to the improb- new ruler was to offer increased inducements ability inherent in the character of an Englishman represented as the thorough-going apologist of slavery. It is needless to observe that we are now fully convinced of our mistake.

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At first sight, confidence in the discernment of our prophet would seem impaired by his fixing the foreboded disruption for 1868. But we learn, on consulting his preface, that this is but a condescending accommodation of the mens divinior to the timidity of unbelievers. His own conviction is that secession will and

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to immigrants, who, " being mostly low and ignorant," naturally reinforced the Abolitionists. Everybody connected with John Brown got a place, more particularly" the notorious Helper," who was made one of the new Receivers of the Land Office." General Fremont became commander-in-chief; "the rabid abolitionist, Joshua Giddings," was appropriately despatched to Hayti-the Government of which state returned the compliment by sending the Duke of Marmalade to Washington. Traffic on the “ underground

railway " increased notably; and slavery | abolition?" Another invasion, under a son disappeared altogether from the District of of John Brown, is similarly discomfited, notColumbia. The naval and military forces were augmented; six Northern States were divided for the purpose of manufacturing new senators: President Seward was reelected; and the Gulf States seceded, electing Mr. M. of South Carolina (Memminger, we presume) President, and Mr. C. of Alabama (whom we fail to identify) Vice-President.

withstanding the ingenious stratagem of the commander, who, because of the manifest selection of the whites as marks for the Kentucky rifles," had ordered " that every white should blacken his face-and had himself set the example." After the execution of this tactician and his officers-which the failure of the North to capture a single prisoner allowed to take place without any fear of reViewed by the light of actual events, the prisals-the Confederates had only to sit still military anticipations of our Southerner seem and enjoy the spectacle of the total destructhe perfection of comicality. Operations tion of New York by the work-people-Boscommence by the capture of Fort Sumter-ton and Philadelphia escaping with a slight not a very difficult operation, inasmuch as singeing, as it were. After this it is hardly the garrison consists of "one old sergeant." necessary to add that the North-Western Fort Moultrie is next blockaded, and in due States conclude a separate peace, that the course reduced to submission, though not be- European powers refuse to acknowledge the fore the seceders have had time to achieve a ineffective blockade, and that the curtain great moral triumph by unanimously repudi- drops upon Secessia at the threshold of her ating their debts. In consequence whereof, millennium, and the Free States considering before the war had lasted three months, " as how best to get rid of "the predaceous and many as one-fourth of all the usually labor- troublesome New England States, with their ing and self-supporting poor of the great pestilent fanaticism," and their "political northern cities, and throughout the manu- and economical position scarcely superior to facturing rural districts, were paupers and those conditions of the present Republic of beggars." This being the case, it seems sur-Hayti." prising that the Northern Government could All this seems sufficiently ludicrous; but, not collect more than seven thousand men for before joining in a laugh at our Southerner's the invasion of the South. After the de- expense, it may be as well to consider how struction of this force by the brave General | far we can afford to do so. Have we, as a S., the rest of the Slave States secede, Washington is taken and made the seat of Government, a Federal army is demolished in Mississippi, the Confederates win a naval battle, and their wicked enemies are reduced to their last resort of exciting a servile insurrection. Need it be said that this also results in failure, or that "the prisoners were all hung as soon as a gallows could be erected"-among them "the notorious abolition-leader and apostle of insurrection and massacre, William L. Garrison, and with him seven negro and nine white public lecturers on slavery and

nation, given evidence of a much more enlightened appreciation of the contest, the principles it involves, its probable duration and issue? Have not the determination and resources of the Free States proved as great, a surprise to most of us as to this unlucky Virginian vaticinator? Has not our policy been shaped by the conviction that the termination of the struggle might be looked for from one week to another? And has not this delusion ruined our most important branch of industry by paralyzing every rational effort for its relief?

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