than wise, and had all the charms of familiarity with the treasures of knowledge. No man could be more social in spirit, less assuming or fastidious in his manners, or more kind and indulgent towards all who approached him. He rather liked to talk, at least in his latter years; but though he took a considerable share in conversation, he rarely suggested the topics on which it was to turn, but readily and quickly took up whatever was presented by those around him. He generally seemed to have no predilection for one subject of discourse more than another; but allowed his mind, like a great encyclopedia, to be opened at any letter his associates might choose.

He had a certain quiet and grave humour which ran through his conversation, and a vein of mild jocularity which gave zest and effect to the condensed and inexhaustible information which formed its staple. There was a little air of affected testiness, and a tone of pretended rebuke and contradiction, with which he used to address his younger friends, that was felt by them as an endearing mark of kindness and familiarity, and prized accordingly. His voice was deep and powerful, though he commonly spoke in a low somewhat monotonous tone, which harmonised with the weight and brevity of his observations, and set off to the greatest advantage the pleasant anecdotes which he delivered with the same grave brow, and the same calm smile playing soberly on his lips. There was nothing of effort or of impatience, any more than of pride or levity, in his demeanour; and there was a finer expression of reposing strength and mild self-possession than we ever recollect to have met in any other person. He had the utmost abhorrence for all sorts of forwardness, parade, or pretensions, and indeed never failed to put all such impostures out of countenance by the manly plainness and honest intrepidity of his language and deportment.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY.

THOMAS DE QUINCEY (born A.D. 1786) was one of the most prolific and discursive contributors to the periodical literature of his day. He himself divides his writings into, 1st, such as were of a narrative style, and intended to interest and amuse, as his Autobiographic Sketches, Memoirs of Pope, Reminiscences of the Lake Poets, etc.; 2nd, such as were of a purely intellectual character, as his Speculative Essays, Criticisms on Political Economy and Metaphysics; and 3rd, such as were of a fictitious and highly imaginative cast, as the Confessions of an Opium Eater. He died in 1859.

OPIUM DREAMS.

EVERY night I have been transported (in my dreams) to Asiatic scenery. I know not whether others share in my feelings on this point; but I have often thought that if I were compelled to forego England and live in China, among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should go mad. Southern Asia in general is the seat of awful images and associations. As the cradle of the human race, if on no other ground, it would have a dim reverential feeling connected with it. But there are other reasons. No man can pretend that the wild, barbarous, and capricious superstitions of Africa affect him in the way that he is affected by the ancient, monumental, cruel, and elaborate religions of Hindostan. The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, histories, and above all of their mythologies, is so impressive that to me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed.

Even Englishmen, though not bred in any knowledge of such institutions, cannot but shudder at the mystic sublimity of castes that have flowed apart, and refused to mix, through such immemorial tracts of time; nor can any man fail to be awed by the sanctity of the Ganges, or the very name of the Euphrates. It contributes much to these feelings that south-eastern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth most swarm

ing with human life, the great officina gentium. Man is a weed in these regions. The vast empires into which the enormous population of Asia has always been cast, give a further sublimity to the feelings associated with all oriental names and usages. In China, over and above what it has in common with the rest of southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, by the barrier of utter abhorrence placed between myself and them, by counter-sympathies deeper than I can analyse. I could sooner live with lunatics, with vermin, with crocodiles, or snakes.

All this and much more the reader must enter into before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these dreams of oriental and mythological tortures impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights, I brought together all creatures, birds, beasts, and reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances that are found in all tropical regions, and assembled them together in China or Hindostan.

From kindred feelings I soon brought Egypt and her gods under the same law. I was stared at, hooted at, grinned at, chattered at by monkeys, paroquets, and cockatoos. I ran into pagodas, and was fixed for centuries at the summit, or in secret rooms. I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshipped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Bramah through the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Seeva lay in wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis or Osiris. I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocrodile trembled at. Thousands of years I lived, and was buried in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed with cancerous kisses by crocodiles, and was laid, confounded with all unutterable abortions, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.

Some slight abstraction I thus attempt of my oriental dreams, which filled me always with such amazement at the monstrous scenery, that horror seemed for a while

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absorbed in sheer astonishment. Sooner or later came a reflux of feeling that swallowed up the astonishment, and left me, not so much in terror as in hatred and abomination of what I saw. Over every frown and threat and punishment, and dim sightless incarceration, brooded a killing sense of eternity and infinity. Into these dreams only it was, with one or two slight exceptions, that any circumstances of physical horror entered. All before had been moral and spiritual terrors. But here the main agents were ugly birds, or snakes, or crocodiles. accursed crocodile became the object of more horror than all the rest. I was compelled to live with him, and for centuries. Sometimes I escaped, and found myself in Chinese houses. The feet of the tables, sofas, etc., became instinct with life; the abominable head of the crocodile, and his leering eyes, looked out upon me, multiplied into ten thousand repetitions; and I stood fascinated and loathing. So often did this hideous reptile haunt my dreams, that many times the very same dream was broken in the very same way. I heard gentle voices speaking to me (I hear everything when I am sleeping), and I awoke it was broad noon, and my children were standing, hand in hand, at my bedside, come to show me their coloured shoes or new frocks, or to let me see them dressed before going out. No experience was so awful, and at the same time so pathetic, as this abrupt transition from the darkness of the infinite to the gaudy summer air of highest noon, and from unutterable abortions of miscreated gigantic vermin to the sight of infancy and innocent human natures.

Then suddenly would come a dream of a far different character a tumultuous dream, commencing with a music such as I now often hear in sleep-music of preparation and awakening suspense. The undulations of fast-gathering tumults were like the opening of the Coronation Anthem; and, like that, gave the feeling of a multitudinous movement of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day, a day of crisis and of ultimate hope to human nature,

then suffering mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, but I knew not where; somehow, but I knew not how; by some beings, but I knew not by whom-a battle, a strife, an agony, was travelling throughout all its stages, was evolving itself like the catastrophe of some mighty drama, with which my sympathy was the more insupportable, from deepening confusion as to its local scene, its cause, its nature, and its undecipherable issue.

I (as is usual in dreams where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement) had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could cause myself to will it; and yet, again, had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. "Deeper than ever plummet sounded," I lay inactive.

Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake, some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms, hurryings to and fro, trepidations of countless fugitives (I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad); darkness and lights; tempests and human faces; and, at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were all the world to me; and but a moment allowed—and clasped hands, with heart-breaking partings, and then-everlasting farewells; and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated--everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated-everlasting farewells! And I awoke in struggles, and I cried aloud, "I will sleep no more!"