edlessly protracted and fatiguing;
but trust your guide; whatever your private opinion, at the time, may
be, he will never miss the road, and when at last you are in the proper
position for observation, the thrill of unwonted pleasure will swallow
up all memory of former efforts and former misgivings. Occasionally such
is not the case; for instance, in the papers on Sir William Hamilton.
They are three in number. Nearly half of the first is taken up in
describing the difficulties under which the writer suffers of
communicating with his publishers; the nervous maladies that torment his
happiness; the limits of time and space so narrowly circumscribed. The
same strain is taken up in the second paper. We have short dissertations
on the deadly 'hiatus in the harness which should connect the
pre-revolutionary with the post-revolutionary commonwealths of England;'
on the adjective _old_, and the aged noun _civilation_; then comes a
general belaboring of athletes and gymnasts, at which point Sir William
fairly emerges into view; suddenly our author seems to recollect that
his space is fast diminishing, and concludes to 'take a rise out of
something or other' at once; sets down Sir William as a genuine
logician, and immediately commences the consideration of several ancient
word puzzles, one of which is stated in a very business-like manner:
'Vermin in account with the divine and long-legged Pelides.' Logic is
pretty uniformly the subject of the third paper, and no inferior
acquaintance with the topic is displayed; but we see very little of Sir
William Hamilton in this miscellaneous collection. But unpardonable
wandering is of extremely rare occurrence; and, on the whole, the evils
of discursiveness are altogether outweighed by the positive advantages
and beauties to which we have referred. To this characteristic trait
must be added another--the dramatic and cumulative manner in which the
subjects discussed are treated. That gives to De Quincey's style
increased power and increased beauty; artistic symmetry is superinduced
upon solid excellence. This peculiarity is especially noticeable in
narratives where the element of horror is central, as in 'The Avenger.'
The gentle whisper rises, gradually and by insensible degrees, to the
awful voice of the thunderbolt. The prelude is calm enough, sweet
enough, but soon the music ascends to a fiercer key; the plot darkens;
the crisis gathers; louder and more tumultuous waxes the fiendish