me, gradually and reluctantly, a necessity
of his life. Like the serpents around Laocoon, it confirmed its grasp,
notwithstanding the wild tossings of his arms, the spasmodic resistance
of every muscle, the loud shouts of protesting agony; and, when
conquered, he lay like the overpowered Hatteraick in the cave, sullen,
still in despair, breathing hard, but perfectly powerless. Its effects
on him, too, were of a peculiar kind. They were not brutifying or
blackguardizing. He was never intoxicated with the drug in his life;
nay, he denies its power to intoxicate. Nor did it at all weaken his
intellectual faculties any more than it strengthened them. We have heard
poor creatures consoling themselves for their inferiority by saying,
"Coleridge would not have written so well but for opium." "No thanks to
De Quincey for his subtlety--he owes it to opium." Let such persons
swallow the drug, and try to write the "Suspiria," or the "Aids to
Reflection."

Coleridge and De Quincey were great in spite of their habits. Nay, we
believe that on truly great intellects stimulus produces little
inspiration at all. Can opium think? can beer imagine? It is De Quincey
in opium--not opium in De Quincey--that ponders and that writes. The
stimulus is only the _occasional cause_ which brings the internal power
into play; it may sometimes dwarf the giant, but it can never really
elevate the dwarf.

The evil influences of opium on De Quincey were of a different, but a
very pernicious sort: they weakened his will; they made him a colossal
slave to a tiny tyrant; they shut him up (like the Genii in the "Arabian
Tales") in a phial filled with dusky fire; they spread a torpor over
the energies of his body; they closed up or poisoned the natural sources
of enjoyment; the air, the light, the sunshine, the breeze, the
influences of spring, lost all charm and power over him. Instead of
these, snow was welcomed with an unnatural joy; storm embraced as a
brother; and the stern scenery of night arose like a desolate temple
round his ruined spirit. If his heart was not utterly hardened, it was
owing to its peculiar breadth and warmth. At last his studies were
interrupted, his peace broken, his health impaired, and then came the
noon of his night; a form of gigantic gloom, swaying an "ebon sceptre,"
stood over him in triumph, and it seemed as if nothing less than a
miraculous intervention could rescue the victim from his power.

But the victim was not an or