unapproachable in the
delineation of character and in the mastery of stately narrative, seems
to be shorn of his wonted power in the presence of the higher
philosophical and moral questions--the flight that is elsewhere so bold
and triumphant, droops and falters here. As for Carlyle, to say nothing
of other faults, we vainly search his writings for anything positive; he
is a blank destroyer, breathing out everlasting denunciation and regret.
No man can possess the highest order of talent or genius whose powers
are essentially negative. Mere demolition--demolition which is not the
first step in the advance of reform and reconstruction, the preliminary
removal of ancient rubbish for the erection of newer and nobler
structures--is worse than futile. But we will not pursue farther this
phase of our subject. We take our stand upon the position, and think it
can be maintained against all comers, that these writers, and others
which might be named, although supreme in certain departments, fail in
_range_ of power; in other words, that they have specialities outside of
which they attain no remarkable excellence. Scott, for instance, is
unsurpassed in the drama of fiction; but in the more transcendent sphere
of poetry his success is open to a very serious demur. But how is the
case with De Quincey? Did he ever write a poem? No; but he was
nevertheless a poet of the first rank. Did he ever publish a treatise on
metaphysics? No. His great work 'De Emendatione Humani Intellectus,' was
never completed, but he was, notwithstanding, an acute philosopher. The
author of no complete history, he was not the less a divine master of
historic narration, grave or gay, sententious or impassioned. No one is
more profoundly convinced than ourselves that mere rhetorical
declamation, and the sepulchral voice of fulsome eulogy can never
establish claims of such vast magnitude. What has Mr. de Quincey
achieved, what range of capacity has he exhibited in the memorials he
has left behind, in the grand conceptions that have arisen upon his
mind, whether completely projected into the sphere of tangible reality
or not?--these are the crucial questions upon which hang for him the
trophies of renown or the dark drapery of oblivion.

Every person who is competent to form an opinion on the subject, very
readily allows that political economy, so infinite and subtile are the
forces that enter into its shifting phenomena, is a science of no slight
complexity, a