f the records of _The London Magazine_. Suddenly
there came light in October last. I ascertained that a son of one of
the Publishers is the ARCHDEACON of MIDDLESEX, the Venerable J. A.
HESSEY, D.C.L.

I stated the case, and the worthy ARCHDEACON came most kindly and
promptly to my assistance. As a boy he remembered DE QUINCEY at his
father's house, and recollected very well reading _Mr. Schnackenberger_.
He informed me, 'I was greatly interested in the [London] Magazine
generally, so much so, that, at my father's request, I copied from his
private list, and attached to the head of each paper the name of the
Author.... This interesting set came to me at my father's death.'

DR. HESSEY had subsequently presented the series to his old pupil, MR.
WILLIAM CAREW HAZLITT (by whose courtesy I have been able to examine
it)--'the grandson of WILLIAM HAZLITT, who was a frequent writer in
the Magazine, and an old friend of my father. I thought he would like
to possess it, and that it would thus be in fitting hands. I should
not have parted with it in favour of any but a man like MR. HAZLITT,
who was sure to value it.'

As these valuable annotations of the ARCHDEACON ramify in various
directions--touching as they do the contributions of many brilliant
men of that period--it may not be amiss (as a possible help to others
in the future) to add a few more decisive words by DR. HESSEY:--

'If any papers are not marked (he refers only to those volumes
actually published by MESSRS. TAYLOR and HESSEY) it was because they
were anonymous, or because, from some inadvertency, they were not
assigned in my father's list. _So far as the record goes, it may be
depended upon._'

By its help I was able to fix the authorship by DE QUINCEY of (1) _The
Dog Story_--translated from the German, (2) _Moral Effects of
Revolutions_, (3) _Prefigurations of Remote Events_, (4) _Abstract of
Swedenborgianism by Immanuel Kant_.

* * * * *

Another perplexing element was the letter written by DE QUINCEY to his
uncle, COLONEL PENSON, in 1819 (PAGE'S _Life_, vol. i. p. 207),
wherein reference is made to certain contributions to _Blackwood's
Magazine_ and _The Quarterly Review_.

The archives of _Maga_ I find go back only as far as 1825. As to _The
Quarterly Review_, I have MR. MURRAY'S authority for stating that DE
QUINCEY never wrote a line in it. Whether any contributions were ever
commissioned, paid for, and afterwards sup