COLERIDGE AND DE QUINCEY.

West Coast Times, Issue 7300, 22 January 1889, Page 4

COLERIDGE AND DE QUINCEY.

De Quincey was profoundly influenced by the eohool of which Coleridge was a leader ; he shared miny ot tbe prejudices or principle dominant in the eigheentb century. While Coleridge and Wordsworth aimed at a poetical re ortnation, De Quincey tried to re -tore the traditions of the great proße writers of the serenteenth century, Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas Browne, ami their contemporaries. His fine musical ear and rich imagination enabled him to succeed bo fer as to become one of tbe £>reat mas'ers of English in what he calls (preface to collected works) tbe " department of impatflioned prose." In the visionary dieamland which is hti peculiar domain be is un> rivalled ; and nis starely rhetoric is also the fitting embodiment of a tender and delicate sentiment, ofctn blended with real pathos, and at times, lighted up by genuine humer. The "Confessions, 1*"1 *" tbe "Suspiria," and essays in the same line elsewhere are the work by wbich he will be permanently knowD. He clearly possessed also an intellect of einßu'ar snbtlety. He never rivalled Coleridge by stimulating pbiloßophical enquiry, and the degree of his metaphysical powers must be matfc.r of co' jecture • but be showed great power in tha economical investigation which Coleridge despised.

Reykjavik, tbe commercial, tbe intellectural, and tbe political centre of Iceland — at once hand, heart, and head of the island— is a little metropolis of but two thousand people.