Finally, he
was restored to his friends and went to Oxford. His mental
independence prevented him from taking a degree, and chronic
neuralgia of the face and teeth led him to form the habit of taking
opium, which clung to him for life.
[Illustration: DE QUINCEY WITH TWO DAUGHTERS AND GRANDCHILD--FROM
A CHALK DRAWING BY JAMES ARCHER, R.S.A. MADE IN 1855.]
De Quincey was a close associate of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey,
Lamb and others. He was a brilliant talker, especially when stimulated
with opium, but he was incapable of sustained intellectual work. Hence
all his essays and other work first appeared in periodicals and were
then published in book form. It is noteworthy that an American
publisher was the first to gather his essays in book form, and that
his first appreciation, like that of Carlyle, came from this country.
Much of De Quincey's work is now unreadable because it deals with
political economy and allied subjects, in which he fancied he was an
expert. He is a master only when he deals with pure literature, but he
has a large vein of satiric humor that found its best expression in
the grotesque irony of "Murder as One of the Fine Arts." In this essay
he descants on the greatest crime as though it were an accomplishment,
and his freakish wit makes this paper as enjoyable as Charles Lamb's
essay on the origin of roast pig.
De Quincey's fame, however, rests upon _The Confessions of an English
Opium-Eater_.
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